Award-winning West Australian writer, Brooke Dunnell, published her second novel earlier this year, turning her pen to the climate crisis and modern motherhood. While her first novel, the Fogarty Literary Award winning The Glass House explored themes of aging parents and suburban life, the follow-up, Last Best Chance has a bit more of a futuristic view. Following two…
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Julia Lawrinson, known for her books for young adult and middle grade readers, has written about her own life before – albeit in a highly fictionalised way. Longtime readers of Lawrinson’s work will recognise elements of her new memoir, How to Avoid a Happy Life, released this May through Fremantle Press. And though the book itself…
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Katherine Allum‘s debut novel was released in May after winning the 2023 Fogarty Literary Award last year. The Skeleton House is the story of Meg, a young woman living in a tight-knit Mormon community in a small American town outside Las Vegas, Nevada. Meg lives with her husband and two children in a caravan when…
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Molly Schmidt‘s hotly anticipated debut novel, Salt River Road, won the 2022 City of Fremantle TAG Hungerford Award. It has now gone on to be longlisted for this year’s Indie Book Awards Debut Fiction Award, looking to continue Fremantle Press’s tradition of unearthing stand out Western Australian Writers. The story of the Tetley family, and their…
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Emma Young’s second novel, The Disorganisation of Celia Stone, is so much more than an updated homage to Bridget Jones’s Diary. Though it may start off with a number of similarities – chief among them, the diary format, and witty, self-deprecating tone, the book goes beyond the ground covered by that beloved 90s classic, exploring…
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Laurie Steed‘s second book, Love, Dad, came out just in time for Father’s Day. It was not, as you might expect, a treatise on how to be a good father. Instead it’s a memoir of one man’s experience of fatherhood, along with a collection of musings on how to be a good father, a good man, and…
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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…
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There are echoes of The Lovely Bones in Joanna Morrison’s debut novel, The Ghost of Gracie Flynn. Narrated by Gracie, the story is told as if her ghost is talking directly to the infant daughter of one of Gracie’s university friends, Sam. Gracie, Sam, Robyn and Cohen were a tight knit foursome, once upon a time, but…
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In Brooke Dunnell‘s Fogarty Award-winning debut novel, The Glass House, Julia Lambett returns to her childhood home in Perth to move her father into care. The timing, as is usually the case in such novels, couldn’t be worse. Julia and her husband Rowan have taken to sleeping in separate beds; with some sort of unspoken issue…
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In 1925, Perth woman Audrey Jacob shot dead her former fiance, Cyril Gidley in the middle of the ballroom at Government House in front of hundreds of witnesses. Yet she did not go to jail for her crime. Now, almost one hundred years later, historian and author Leigh Straw has delved into this case for…
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In 1906, Frances (Fan) Johnson moves from Adelaide to Fremantle with her family so that her mother, Agnes, can take care of her estranged father. Edwin Salt has been thrown out by his wife, Annie, and everyone believes that he does not have much longer to live. Though Agnes is estranged from her mercurial and…
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“I think it’s really important to show that, for us, the past, present and future, are happening simultaneously.” These are the words of editor Rafeif Ismail in the introductory conversation with fellow editor Ellen van Neervan for Unlimited Futures, a collection of speculative fiction from First Nations and Afro-Black writers. They perfectly encapsulate the unifying…
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Submissions for the 2022 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award opened late last week, inviting WA authors to submit their manuscript for a chance to win $15,000 and a publishing contract. Writers have until midnight March 20th to put their work forward, so if you’re thinking about it, better move quickly! Sponsored by the City of…
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2021. We had high hopes. But it’s been another year of uncertainty and upheaval – albeit perhaps not as bad as last year. It has been another strong year for books and publishing, with some big names returning with new books: Colson Whitehead, Taylor Jenkins Reid and Sally Rooney to name just three. It’s also…
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Cato Kwong fans will be sad to learn that Crocodile Tears will be Alan Carter‘s final adventure for the Perth-based detective. In his last outing, Cato is set to investigate the murders of two retirees whose bodies have been mutilated to send some sort of message. Meanwhile, Rory Driscoll, multilingual spook, is tasked with babysitting a bunch of…
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“What made you want to become a nurse?” This is the question at the heart of Maria Papas‘ TAG Hungerford Award Winning novel, Skimming Stones. Following two timelines, one in the present and one in memory, the novel follows protagonist Grace as the events of her workday force her to remember a particularly tumultuous time in…
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A refreshingly fun and hopeful take on the coming of age story, Jessica Walton and Aśka’s Stars in Their Eyes is a graphic novel that celebrates nerdiness and reinforces the value of representation, all while exploring first love, self-care and identity. The story follows Maisie as her Mum takes her to her first Fancon. Maisie…
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When Karen Herbert was made redundant from her corporate job, she did what most people only dream of. She sat down, and she began to write a book. A mere eighteen months later, she had two books contracted to Western Australian powerhouse, Fremantle Press. The first of these to be released is The River Mouth,…
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2021 is coming into the final stretch, the final quarter, and with that comes more books – all vying for the Christmas market. It’s 81days to go, if you were curious. So we’re back for our final instalment of our AU’s Most Anticipated Reads feature for this year. Though we’ll be back just before Christmas…
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Simone moved to London to become a journalist, but then she met Paul. Now, she’s about to have his child, and nothing is turning out quite like she planned. Having a small human completely dependent on her for survival is terrifying to Simone, whose family are halfway across the world in Perth. Though he’s her…
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Locust Summer, the debut novel by WA writer David Allan-Petale, has been a long time coming. Shortlisted for the 2017 Australian/Vogel Literary Award administered by Allen and Unwin, the book was released this July by Fremantle Press in the midst of Perth’s latest lockdown. The postponement of a book launch due to circumstances beyond the…
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We’re over halfway through the year. How are your 2021 reading goals going? Have all the mini snap lockdowns around the country had you turning to a good book? We’re back to take a look at a handful of the new titles coming out across the next couple of months. With so many books published each…
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Mel Hall’s debut novel, The Little Boat on Trusting Lane, is a tender and thoughtful reflection on the power of community in the process of healing. The Little Mother Earth Ship is an alternative healing centre based out of a houseboat aboard stilts in the middle of a scrapyard on Trusting Lane. Richard, who runs…
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, Last night saw Brooke Dunnell announced as the winner of the 2021 Fogarty Literary Award at the ECU Spiegeltent. Dunnell receives a $20,000 cash prize from the Fogarty Foundation, along with a publishing contract with Fremantle Press for her winning manuscript The Glass House. The Fogarty Literary Award is for Western Australian writers aged…
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Shortlisted for the inaugural Fogarty Literary Award, Where the Line Breaks, the debut novel by West Australian writer Michael Burrows is stylistically a little out of the ordinary for Fremantle Press. For a start, a large part of the story is told in the form of a fictional PhD thesis. Writing the thesis is Matthew Denton, a “starry-eyed…
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The Australian Psychological Society writes that anger is triggered when a person believes “their wellbeing and social status are either not being respected or are under threat”. It seems timely then to be reading this book amongst the current climate of Australian politics. Women of a Certain Rage is a collection of short stories and…
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Fremantle Press have been running workshops on the business of being a writer in Australia for years. Now, after coming across the same questions again and again, publisher Georgia Richter and creative writing lecturer Deborah Hunn have decided that it was time to write a book that answered them. More than ‘just another how to write…
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Cait Copper loves books. As the owner of Hay Street independent bookshop, Book Fiend, she doesn’t have time for any other kind of love in her life; unless you count the weekly deliveries she makes to her housebound clients. She goes to work, deals with the gamut of questions about why her stock is so…
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Detective-novel loving vacuum salesman, Bernard, barely listens to his wife anymore. They live in the same house, but that’s about the extent of things. Gloria talks a lot. Like, a lot a lot. So when she suddenly stops talking to him, the silence comes as a bit of a shock. But, after weeks of suffering…
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Josephine Taylor‘s debut novel is something a little bit different for Fremantle Press. Mixing historical fiction with contemporary, Eye of a Rook takes a look at women’s health throughout recent centuries, shining a light particularly on attitudes to chronic illnesses and women’s pain. Based on the author’s own experiences with vulvodynia, Taylor hopes that this book…
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