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Friday Unlocked reviews >

The Bogan Book Club (John Larkin, Larrikin) 

Tuesday, 15 October 2024
When James Larwood is released from prison, his career is in tatters and his marriage is broken. His brother, Larry, throws him a lifeline in the form of a cleaning...

Murriyang: Song of Time (Stan Grant, Bundyi) 

Tuesday, 15 October 2024
In May 2023, journalist Stan Grant (Talking to My Country) stepped away from his role as host of ABC’s Q+A. His latest book, Murriyang: Song of Time, is a heartfelt...

The Dream (Iain Ryan, Ultimo) 

Tuesday, 15 October 2024
Iain Ryan plunges the reader into a seedy underworld of police corruption and political scheming in his latest novel, The Dream. Set during a spiralling recession and the 1982 Brisbane...

Special Delivery (Leesa Ronald, A&U) 

Tuesday, 8 October 2024
Leesa Ronald’s debut novel, Special Delivery, is an enemies-to-lovers rom-com with some hilarious side characters, steamy love scenes and a snarky, highly relatable protagonist. Poppy McKellar is unexpectedly pregnant, and...

Black Convicts (Santilla Chingaipe, Scribner) 

Tuesday, 1 October 2024
In recent years, historians have increasingly shown that the past, especially in the West, was more multicultural than the monoculture so often portrayed. In Australia, where colonial history has consistently...

Noble Fragments (Michael Visontay, Scribe) 

Tuesday, 1 October 2024
Noble Fragments examines the nature of value and the role of perspective in shaping it, as journalist and author Michael Visontay weaves together two interrelated stories. The first is about...

Thunderhead (Sophie Beer, A&U Children’s) 

Tuesday, 1 October 2024
Thunderhead is the debut middle-grade novel by award-winning author and illustrator Sophie Beer. Thunderhead (the titular character’s online username—their name isn’t revealed until the end of the book) is an...

The Thinning (Inga Simpson, Hachette) 

Tuesday, 24 September 2024
In Inga Simpson’s The Thinning, Fin has grown up in a world long past its tipping point. Daughter to an astronomer father and an astrophotographer mother, Fin knows everything about...

Extreme Animal Facts (Jennifer Cossins, Lothian) 

Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Animal books are big business as toddlers to tweens revel in discovering quirky titbits about earth’s creatures. Standing out in a saturated book field is no easy task, but CBCA...

Leave the Girls Behind (Jacqueline Bublitz, A&U) 

Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Ruth-Ann Baker, affectionately known as ‘Ruthie’ to those around her, never takes the same route home, secures her apartment with three internal chain locks and can recite murder victim statistics...

Down the Rabbit Hole (Shaeden Berry, Echo) 

Tuesday, 17 September 2024
In Shaeden Berry’s mystery debut, Down the Rabbit Hole, the lives of three women unravel in the aftermath of a tragedy. In 2015, Alice Montgomery goes missing. Seven years later,...

Vegan Italian Food (Shannon Martinez, Hardie Grant) 

Tuesday, 17 September 2024
Prolific vegan chef and restauranteur Shannon Martinez’s fourth cookbook, Vegan Italian Food, is anything but conventional, but she promises she’s not out to shock your nonna. Martinez is a Spanish Australian...

Molly (Rosalie Ham, Macmillan) 

Tuesday, 17 September 2024
Molly is a riveting prequel to The Dressmaker from much-loved Australian author Rosalie Ham, and can be enjoyed as a standalone novel. Set in the inner-city suburbs of Melbourne in...

Theory & Practice (Michelle de Kretser, Text) 

Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Theory & Practice is a quietly experimental new novel from two-time Miles Franklin winner Michelle de Kretser (Scary Monsters). Set mainly in St Kilda in 1986, it captures a snapshot...

Off to the Nursery (Alice Oehr, Scribble) 

Tuesday, 10 September 2024
Off to the Nursery is the latest from Alice Oehr, the award-winning creator of Off to the Market and Artichoke to Zucchini. With this new picture book, Oehr has focused on gardening and...