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Friday Unlocked reviews >

The Degenerates (Raeden Richardson, Text) 

Cover of The Degenerates Tuesday, 9 July 2024
The Degenerates is a bold, layered work of experimental literary fiction that follows the linked storylines of Maha, Titch and Ginny, three Melbournians who have found themselves lost in their...

Diving, Falling (Kylie Mirmohamadi, Scribe) 

Tuesday, 9 July 2024
In Kylie Mirmohamadi’s debut novel, Diving, Falling, Leila Whittaker is left with the business of living after her husband’s death. Ken Black was a famous artist, a legend given a...

The Fog (Brooke Hardwick, S&S) 

Tuesday, 2 July 2024
The atmospheric setting of Brooke Hardwick’s debut novel, a highly selective writers’ retreat on the isolated island of Rathlin, off the coast of Northern Ireland, is sure to entice readers...

Summer of Shipwrecks (Shivaun Plozza, UQP) 

Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Award-winning children’s author Shivaun Plozza’s Summer of Shipwrecks is a vividly real, heartfelt middle-grade novel that explores the capriciousness of tween friendship. Sidney has been waiting all year for her...

Anomaly (Emma Lord, Affirm) 

Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Anomaly, the debut YA novel by Emma Lord, is fast-paced, compelling and confidently plotted. In 2020, Piper Manning awakens 52 days after a virus has wiped out her town—and perhaps...

Protecting Indigenous Art (Colin Golvan, MUP) 

Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Scepticism is probably reasonable, at first, reading a book about Indigenous art written by a non-Indigenous person. Colin Golvan, however, has earned his bona fides by working as a barrister...

Jasper Cliff (Josh Kemp, Fremantle) 

Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Western Australian author Josh Kemp’s debut novel, Banjawarn, won several prestigious awards, including the Dorothy Hewett Award, a Ned Kelly Award, and a Western Australian Premier’s Prize. For his second...

In the Margins (Gail Holmes, Ultimo) 

Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Inspired by the life of Frances Wolfreston, a book collector who preserved the earliest part of Shakespeare’s legacy, Gail Holmes’s elegant debut speaks about the injustices and lack of freedom...

Translations (Jumaana Abdu, Vintage) 

Cover of Translations Tuesday, 25 June 2024
Translations is a powerful, character-driven debut novel by Jumaana Abdu. It follows young mother Aliyah and her daughter, Sakina, who leave Sydney for a property in the Northern Rivers region...

Girl Falling (Hayley Scrivenor, Macmillan) 

Tuesday, 25 June 2024
Girl Falling is the second novel by award-winning crime writer Hayley Scrivenor. Three women—Daphne, Magdu and Finn—head out for a day of rock climbing in the Blue Mountains, but only...

Bird (Courtney Collins, Hachette) 

Cover of Bird Tuesday, 25 June 2024
Following the success of her first novel, The Burial, Courtney Collins’s new dual-narrative novel, Bird, centres on the titular 14-year-old girl. The story is told in alternating chapters differentiated by...

Dirrayawadha (Anita Heiss, S&S) 

Tuesday, 18 June 2024
Dirrayawadha is a work of searing historical fiction set during the Wiradyuri wars in 1820s Bathurst and centring on a love story between a young Wiradyuri woman and an Irish...

Liars (James O’Loghlin, Echo) 

Tuesday, 18 June 2024
In James O’Loghlin’s murder mystery Liars, every character has secrets to hide. The novel is set in the fictitious Bullford Point, a coastal town on NSW’s Northern Beaches, untouched by...

Voyagers: Our journey into the Anthropocene (Lauren Fuge, Text) 

Tuesday, 18 June 2024
The Anthropocene—the geological period dominated by humanity’s activity on the planet—is increasingly seen by scientists and academics as an era of devastation wrought by overconsumption and insatiable industrialisation. In Voyagers,...

Love Unleashed (Melanie Saward, Michael Joseph) 

Cover of Love Unleashed Tuesday, 11 June 2024
Melanie Saward’s Love Unleashed is a bingeable, warm and soulful romantic comedy. Saward (whose debut novel, Burn, was released in 2023) draws on her own experience in New York to...

Winter of the Wolf (Amanda Willimott, Viking) 

Tuesday, 11 June 2024
Winter of the Wolf is Amanda Willimott’s debut novel, inspired by the real-life trial of Gilles Garnier, who was convicted of being a werewolf in 1573. When Sidonie Montot travels...