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Treading Air (Ariella Van Luyn, Affirm Press) 

Treading Air cover Friday, 29 April 2016
Confined to a locked Brisbane hospital in 1945, Lizzie O’Dea is thinking about the imminent release from gaol of her husband Joe. He’s served 20 years and she’s not sure...

Nevernight (Jay Kristoff, HarperVoyager) 

Nevernight cover Friday, 29 April 2016
This is an unusual new fantasy novel. Told in a mixture of third- and second-person narrative, it’s the story of a young woman who goes from noblewoman to outcast before...

Troppo (Madelaine Dickie, Fremantle Press) 

Troppo cover Friday, 29 April 2016
In Madelaine Dickie’s debut novel Troppo, which won the 2014 TAG Hungerford Award for an unpublished manuscript by a WA writer, we meet Penny, a young, directionless woman who finds...

The polyphonic read: Rajith Savanadasa on ‘Ruins’ 

Rajith Savandasa photo credit Craig Peihopa Friday, 29 April 2016
Told from the perspectives of five characters, Rajith Savanadasa’s Ruins is ‘a riveting debut that examines the intricacies of class, racial and generational divides in contemporary Sri Lanka’, writes reviewer...

The Sound (Sarah Drummond, Fremantle Press) 

The Sound cover Friday, 29 April 2016
From the first pages of Sarah Drummond’s debut novel—with its descriptively realistic prose—you can tell the author has spent time at sea. In fact, Drummond, who has a PhD in...

Wood Green (Sean Rabin, Giramondo) 

Wood Green cover Friday, 29 April 2016
Sean Rabin’s debut novel Wood Green begins as a quiet, small-town Australian drama and ends, spectacularly, as a bizarre metafictional parable on literary influence that a young David Cronenberg would...

Black British (Hebe de Souza, Ventura Press) 

Black British Friday, 1 April 2016
Hebe de Souza’s debut novel explores identity and belonging in post-colonial India. Lucy has returned to Goa 21 years after her family was forced to leave their home as the...

The Healing Party (Micheline Lee, Black Inc.) 

The Healing Party cover Friday, 1 April 2016
This debut family drama centres on Natasha Chan, who, having sought exile in Darwin away from her devout Christian family, returns home to nurse her ailing mother, who is dying...

Out of the Ice (Ann Turner, S&S) 

Out of the Ice cover Friday, 1 April 2016
Out of the Ice is the second novel by screenwriter Ann Turner (The Lost Swimmer). Its narrator is a scientist who has just over-wintered in Antarctica, and is sent to do...

Error Australis (Ben Pobjie, Affirm) 

Error Australis cover Friday, 1 April 2016
Ben Pobjie sets the tone for his book Error Australis by comparing history to reality TV; both are filled with drama, suspense, love, hatred, loyalty, deception and horses—and we may...

Comfort Food (Ellen van Neerven, UQP) 

Comfort Food cover Friday, 1 April 2016
Comfort Food is the eagerly anticipated poetry collection from Ellen van Neerven, whose debut 2014 fiction collection Heat and Light marked her as one of our most promising new writers....

Fiction that slays: Julie Koh on ‘Portable Curiosities’

author Julie Koh (photo credit Hugh Stewart) Friday, 1 April 2016
Julie Koh’s debut short story collection Portable Curiosities (UQP, June) ‘takes a magnifying glass to Australia’s greatest fallacies’, writes reviewer Sonia Nair. She spoke to the author. How does the...

The Dry (Jane Harper, Macmillan) 

The Dry Monday, 21 March 2016
In the tiny town of Kiewarra, a mother and son are found murdered. The likely culprit is the father, also found shot dead in the back of his truck. It...

Portable Curiosities (Julie Koh, UQP) 

Monday, 21 March 2016
Armed with an uncanny ability to capture the zeitgeist of the time—whether it be contemporary society’s obsession with foodie culture or institutionalised racism and misogyny—Australian writer Julie Koh’s darkly satirical...

Fertile ground: Jane Harper on ‘The Dry’ 

Jane Harper Monday, 21 March 2016
Jane Harper won the 2015 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript for her first novel The Dry (Picador, June). She spoke to reviewer Myles McGuire. One of the most...

On tour: Maria V Snyder

Maria V Snyder Monday, 21 March 2016
US fantasy author Maria V Snyder is best known for her YA-crossover ‘Study’ series. Her latest book is Night Study (Harlequin). She will be travelling to the Gold Coast, Sydney...

On tour: Patrick deWitt

Patrick deWitt Thursday, 25 February 2016
Canadian author Patrick deWitt’s latest novel Undermajordomo Minor (Granta) is a black comedy of manners. He will be visiting the Perth Writers Festival and Adelaide Writers’ Week in February. What...

On tour: Muriel Barbery

Muriel Barbery Thursday, 25 February 2016
French author Muriel Barbery’s latest novel The Life of Elves (Text) is the story of two children whose amazing abilities ‘bring them into contact with magical worlds’. She will travel...

On tour: Patrick Gale

Patrick Gale Thursday, 25 February 2016
British writer Patrick Gale’s latest book, A Place Called Winter (Tinder Press), follows the life of Edwardian gentleman Harry Cane as he is forced to relocate to the newly colonised...

Between a Wolf and a Dog (Georgia Blain, Scribe) 

Between a wolf and a dog Wednesday, 24 February 2016
Georgia Blain’s Between a Wolf and a Dog explores the intricacies of modern family life with the emotional veracity you might expect of a book with a therapist as a...

An Isolated Incident (Emily Maguire, Picador) 

An Isolated Incident Wednesday, 24 February 2016
There has been a proliferation of pretty-dead-girl thrillers in the past few years and it shows no sign of letting up. But don’t let the trend fool you into thinking...