Reviews

The sad girl novel is a relatively new concept in the book world, but it’s one that has fascinated readers since its invention. Hallmarked by novels such as Meg Mason‘s Sorrow and Bliss and often distinguished by cover images of women lying or leaning face-down, this new kind of book takes the classic ‘chick lit’ à la…

A young woman, grieving the loss of her twin brother, leaves Italy and heads to the one place he’d always wanted to go – Shanghai. By day, she teaches Italian. By night, she seeks an end to the grief that consumes her. And then she meets Xu. Blue Hunger, the fifth novel from Italian author…

Threads That Bind, the debut YA novel from Kika Hatzopoulou, follows Io Ora. Io is a descendant of the Greek Fates,  the youngest of three sisters, with the ability to cut the threads of fate that connect people to the things they love and to life itself. Io scrapes a living in the poorest part…

If you’re not familiar with John McPhee, he’s considered “a pioneer of creative nonfiction” and won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1999 book Annals of the Former World. That book is the complete collection of two decades worth of road trips he took with eminent geologists, through which he tells the history of North America’s…

Orphia and Eurydicius by Elyse John is a beautiful and poetic new retelling of the original Greek myth, Orpheus and Eurydice. In the original myth, Orpheus is known to be a dominating male lead, with Eurydice as his submissive lover. In John’s retelling,  the gender roles of the two characters are switched, making Orphia a…

Jo Baker doesn’t just write historical fiction; she plays with it in the way only a writer at the top of their craft can. She is a writer whose work takes the reader’s expectations of the genre and twists them into something marvellously unexpected. Her latest novel, The Midnight News, is no different. To start,…

The Silk Merchant’s Son isn’t Peter Burke‘s first foray into writing historical fiction based on the stories West Aussies think they know. His first novel, The Drowning Dream, was shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award in 1996, and was a mystery set against the backdrop of the Broome pearling industry circa the 1920s. His second novel, Wettening…

Gwyn has emerged victorious over the risen dead. But at what cost? Aranor has fallen and Ailbhe Ahriddin sits on the Tintarel throne. The survivors of the Demon War flock to her banner. Alcide is by her side, caught in a dark plot that Gwyn can’t quite figure out. And somewhere out there, the last…

Beginning in London in 1847, Susan Paterson’s debut novel Where Light Meets Water is a subtle, delightful work of historical fiction. Its protagonist is Tom Rutherford, a young man who has never known any life other than on the sea. From the time of his father’s death, Tom has been apprenticed on ships, working his way…

Shay is an outsider. Part of a fringe religion known as the Aviscultans, she has never quite lived up to the legacy of her mother, who divined great messages from the murmurations of starlings. Regularly escaping to London, she works as a messenger, skipping nimbly across the city skyline, and, occasionally, staging rescues of birds…

Crows Nest is the debut novel from author Nikki Mottram. Mottram, has used her extensive experience in child protection and psychology to great effect, crafting a thriller that is intense and grounded in reality. The novel is set in the late 90s in Toowoomba, Queensland. It’s a novel that delves into the often secretive world…

Award-winning Australian author Stephanie Bishop published her fourth novel The Anniversary in late March, though you may be forgiven for having missed it given the proliferation of big names with novels due out around the same time. (Pip Williams, anyone?) Centring on the relationship between a novelist J B Blackwood and her filmmaker husband, Patrick (who…

Why do people get married? Why would a person willing choose to legally and financially bind themselves to another person, particularly in 2023? For love? Security? A great big party? It’s this myth of marital happiness that author Clementine Ford will explore in I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage, due for release on the 31…

Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell is a deeply thought-provoking book that challenges the way we perceive time and its relationship to our lives, work, and the environment. The author explores vital topics like climate change, equality, death, and culture in an intense, but engaging manner that will make readers…

Christine Courtenay was married to literary legend, Bryce Courtenay. On the tenth anniversary of his death, she has lovingly written and published a memoir of his extraordinary life. The book looks behind the veil to examine the formative experiences that shaped the famous novelist and raconteur. Bryce famously wrote The Power of One, which was…

The sequel to the best-selling The Left-Handed Booksellers of London is finally here, and Garth Nix certainly delivers. Return to the wild, dangerous but eccentric world of the magical crime-fighting bookseller St Jacques family in The Sinister Booksellers of Bath. Demi-mortal Susan Arkshaw has been steadfastly avoiding all bookseller business since discovering her magical heritage. She wants…

Kara Gnodde’s debut novel The Theory of (Not Quite) Everything has been compared to Australian bestseller, The Rosie Project. I can see the similarities, but the starkest comparison to my mind is TV’s The Big Bang Theory. Imagine if Sheldon Cooper was looked after by his sister instead of by Leonard Hofstader. Now imagine him devising an experiment…

Magical girls, politics, religion and revolution collide in Kate J. Armstrong‘s debut novel, Nightbirds. Set in a 1920s-inspired world where magic is prohibited, this YA fantasy explores the politics of women in power in an action-packed and wild ride through the fictional city of Simta. Matilde, Sayer and Æsa are Nightbirds, girls will innate magic…

When Maxine ‘Max’ Mayberry’s life falls apart around her, she doesn’t just get mad… she gets hungry. When Max discovers her long-term boyfriend Scott in bed with a glamorous ad executive from her work, her life begins to fall apart. Not to mention that she’s recently discovered that she has a brain tumour and needs…

Whilst reading Kira McPherson‘s debut novel Higher Education, I couldn’t help but feel like the interior world of the novel was familiar. It wasn’t until I was a few chapters in that I realised it was set in Perth. Don’t get me wrong – it was not the book’s fault that I didn’t realise. It’s just…

Thea Zoltaire wants to be a Warsword, a legendary warrior of Thezmarr. There’s just two problems. One, thanks to a prophecy, women are forbidden to wield blades. And two, Thea only has a few years left to live. Her time is running out. After years of training in secret, she finally has an opportunity to…

Dark Mode is author Ashley Kalagian Blunt‘s first crime novel, and it’s utterly terrifying. When twenty-six-year-old Reagan Carsen stumbles across a dismembered body in an alley in Sydney on a scorching hot day in 2017, her instinct is not to call the police, but to run and hide. The victim looks just like her, and…

If you’ve ever seen a knitting or crochet group get together at your local library or community centre, you’ll know that craft groups are a hive of big personalities. The Copeton Crochet Circle, AKA the Copeton Craft Resistance, are no different. These ladies (and gentleman) are the cast of Kate Solly‘s charming debut novel, Tuesday Evenings with…

Quirky American author, Kevin Wilson‘s latest fictional offering was released in late 2022 to much anticipation. Called Now is Not the Time to Panic, the novel once again explores the line between art and chaos as it follows sixteen-year-old Frances ‘Frankie’ Budge through the summer of 1996. A loner and an aspiring writer, Frankie is a…

Only the wealthiest and most influential families can boast of having their own Grief Nurse. Shunned, feared, and revered in equal measure, Grief Nurses ensure their families are free of negative emotions, freeing them from sadness, anxiety, and heartache. Lynx is the Asters’ Grief Nurse, removing their Sorrow and replacing it with Bright. Taken as…

On his 59th birthday, Tyson Parks, a famous but fading horror writer, receives a desk from his partner. It’s hoped that the piece will get his creative juices flowing again, and rekindle his passion for his work. And it seems to be working. His agent is more excited than Tyson has seen him in years,…

A book about staring down the barrel of a stage four cancer diagnosis could have made for grim reading. But beloved actor, Richard E. Grant brings his likeable nature and positive personality to the unsurprisingly-named, A Pocketful of Happiness. This memoir is a love letter to his darling wife, Joan Washington, and a reminder of…

The recent memoir from Paul Newman really ought to have been titled ‘self-critical man’, with the late actor casting a critical and analytical eye over his career and life.  The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man is the result of a project started decades ago by Newman and his friend, screenwriter Stewart Stern. The pair got…

Comedian Tom Ballard is known for the biting social commentary in his jokes. The podcaster, former Triple J presenter and TV host has never been backward in coming forward with his political views. His new book, I, Millennial is cut from much the same cloth, as he grapples with various important issues and considers the…

When it comes to true crime Emily Webb is something of an expert. The Melbourne-based journalist is the host of the Australian True Crime podcast along with co-host and fellow author, Meshel Laurie. Webb has also published three books on the subject matter; her latest, Suburban True Crime draws together some of the same cases…