Echo Publishing

International Women's Day

Five Biographical Fiction Picks for International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day (March 8th) is a day to celebrate the achievements of women and raise awareness of the discrimination still faced by many women all over the world. In celebration of IWD, we have put together a list of five recent or forthcoming novels which fictionalise the lives of real-life heroines – women who…

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The Magpie's Sister

Book Review: All the fun of the circus and then some in Kerri Turner’s The Magpie’s Sister

There’s an old trick that writers who participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) know, and that’s when in doubt, add a circus. It works. Circuses are fun. They have glitz and glamour, and underdogs, and sometimes literal dogs and other animals. Everyone loves a circus story. In recent years, the darker side to circuses…

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Best Books 2022

The Best Books of the Year: 2022

2022 has been a great year for settling in with a good book and escaping the world outside. We’ve reached that part of the year where we all start agonising over our ‘lists’  –best albums, best films, and of course best books.  We in the Books team have looked back over the year’s releases and…

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We Come With This Place

Book Review: Debra Dank’s We Come With This Place is an unforgettable read

Debra Dank’s We Come With This Place is an outstanding and remarkable book. It’s an unforgettable read, packed with rich detail regarding Dank’s own family history; but also the broader story of Country and people.  It is a vivid and profound story that is told with great honesty and depth. I have never before felt…

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The Wreck

Book Review: Adventure and rebellion on the high seas combine in Meg Keneally’s The Wreck

1819, Manchester. Sarah McCaffrey and her mother Emily attend a talk at St Peter’s Field by the renowned orator and reformist Harold Hartford (a fictional character based on Henry Hunt). The establishment, wary of the revolutionary sentiments growing among the poorer working classes in the shadow of the French Revolution some twenty years earlier, have…

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Euphoria Kids

Book Review: Alison Evans’ YA fantasy Euphoria Kids is a stunning contemporary fairytale

Iris, Babs, and the boy without a name. One from the earth, one made of fire, and one who isn’t quite sure what he’s made of just yet. For this trio, navigating school and family life should have been enough. But there’s trouble brewing. Iris, who counts the faeries and dryads amongst their friends, is…

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Book Review: Spotlight on the girl from Botany Bay in Meg Keneally’s Fled

Meg Keneally may have a literary giant for a father, but her career speaks for itself.  Beginning her working life as Junior Public Affairs Officer at the Australian Consulate-General in New York, she has worked as a sub-editor and freelance features writer in Dublin, as a journalist at the Daily Telegraph in Australia, as a talkback…

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Book Review: Art dealer-cum-detective Alex Clayton returns in Katherine Kovacic’s Painting in the Shadows

Art dealer Alex Clayton is back, and conservator best friend John Porter and faithful hound Hogarth aren’t too far behind either. Invited to preview a new exhibition at the Melbourne International Museum of Art, they’re present to see museum staff unveil a supposedly cursed painting. But when one of the workers collapses and damages the…

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Interview: Highway Bodies author Alison Evans talks representation, non-binary teens, and a very Aussie apocalypse

Highway Bodies, the second novel from author Alison Evans, hit bookstore shelves earlier this month. AU Reviewer Jodie had the chance to chat to the writer about their latest work, a unique slice of Aussie YA fiction, which pits a diverse group of teens against seemingly impossible, zombie-riddled odds. First, can you tell us a…

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Book Review: Bridie Jabour’s The Way Things Should Be is not the romantic comedy you were expecting

When Claudia Carter returns home to the small town of Winston for her wedding, she is expecting chaos. She is expecting that her estranged parents won’t get along, that her sister Poppy will be a brat, and that her Aunt Mary will be a pain in the arse. But she’s put all of that aside…

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Book Review: Delve into a 1930s murder with Katherine Kovacic’s The Portrait of Molly Dean

Molly Dean, artist’s muse and aspiring journalist, was brutally murdered in Melbourne in 1930. Despite compelling evidence her killer was never officially found. Seventy years later, art dealer Alex Clayton discovers what she believes to be a portrait of Molly and delves headfirst into the mystery. Despite cover-ups, missing records, and suspects long since deceased,…

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Book Review: The Not So Subtle Art Of Being A Fat Girl shows that you can succeed by embracing imperfections

Tess Holliday is a woman that knows all about obstacles. Standing at five-foot-five and wearing a size 26 in clothes, there was a time when if she’d told people she was an aspiring model their reactions would have been laughter and/or scorn. But these days she can thumb her nose at her detractors, because she…

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Book Review: Shine Like It Does is a sparkly new biography about Michael Hutchence & INXS

This year marks the 20th anniversary since the death of the legendary, Michael Hutchence. In this time, a lot of books and articles have been published about this enigmatic man. A new biography, Shine Like It Does, from journalist Toby Creswell, may not be the most necessary title, but his book is an intriguing one; with Creswell managing…

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Book Review: And Fire Came Down by Emma Viskic is a novel about the nature of family and belonging

Author Emma Viskic is an award-winning Australian crime writer, her critically acclaimed debut novel Resurrection Bay won the 2016 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction, as well as many other awards. Not only that but she’s also a classically trained clarinettist, who’s worked with Jose Carreras and Dame Kiri Te Kenawa. Her new novel, And…

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Book Review: Claire Halliday’s Things My Father Taught Me is a love letter to Australian Dads

In the lead-up to Father’s Day journalist, copywriter and author, Claire Halliday follows up her previous book, Things My Mother Taught Me with one about the dads. Both books are collections of short interviews undertaken by Halliday with well-known Australian identities, where they describe the relationship they have with a parent. These range from warm…

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Read the first chapter of Iain Ryan’s new regional noir novel The Student

Sometimes it’s hard to know if you’re going to know if you’re going to like a novel just from looking at the cover and the synopsis. Sometimes it’s handy to read a little bit of the novel, get a feel for it… realise you love it, want to read more, and go out and by…

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