Treading Air (Ariella Van Luyn, Affirm Press)
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)
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)
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In Madelaine Dickie’s debut novel Troppo, which won the 2014 TAG Hungerford Award for an unpublished manuscript by a WA writer, we meet Penny, a young, directionless woman who finds...
Labour of Love: A Story of Generosity, Hope and Surrogacy (Shannon Garner, S&S)
Friday, 29 April 2016
With two children of her own and positive birth experiences, Shannon Garner felt the urge to help others and found a gay couple, Jon and Justin, who needed a surrogate....
The polyphonic read: Rajith Savanadasa on ‘Ruins’
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)
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)
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...
Gotham: Wisdom Tree Book One (Nick Earls, Inkerman & Blunt)
Friday, 1 April 2016
What does family mean in the 21st century? Brisbane writer Nick Earls has a few ideas. Five, specifically. Wisdom Tree is a collection of five interlinked novellas that place the...
Black British (Hebe de Souza, Ventura Press)
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.)
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)
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)
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)
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’
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...
A novella approach: Nick Earls on the ‘Wisdom Tree’ series
Friday, 1 April 2016
Nick Earls’ Gotham (Inkerman & Blunt) is the first of five interlinked novellas that will be released each month from May to September. Reviewer Carody Culver spoke to Earls about...
A Long Time Coming: Essays on Old Age (Melanie Joosten, Scribe)
Friday, 1 April 2016
It can be difficult to admit that we are all products of an ageist society, guilty of stereotyping and discrimination against the elderly, regarding them as a hopeless and expensive...
On defeated dreams: Julia Leigh on ‘Avalanche’
Friday, 1 April 2016
Novelist and filmmaker Julia Leigh’s first work of nonfiction Avalanche: A Love Story (Hamish Hamilton) is a ‘brave and candid account of her desire to have a child [via IVF...
The Dry (Jane Harper, Macmillan)
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...
The Last Days of Ava Langdon (Mark O’Flynn, UQP)
Monday, 21 March 2016
Let us be clear—not all novelists are poets and not all poets are novelists. Mark O’Flynn is that rare writer who can do both well. The Last Days of Ava...
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...
Avalanche: A Love Story (Julia Leigh, Hamish Hamilton)
Monday, 21 March 2016
Author and director Julia Leigh began IVF treatment at 38, knowing that the odds were stacked against her yet still hoping that she would be ‘one of the lucky ones’....
Fertile ground: Jane Harper on ‘The Dry’
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
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...
Murder most foul: Emily Maguire on ‘An Isolated Incident’
Thursday, 25 February 2016
Emily Maguire’s latest novel An Isolated Incident explores the aftermath of a murder in a small town through the perspectives of the victim’s sister and the journalist reporting on the...
On tour: 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
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
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)
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)
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...
A Kiss from Mr Fitzgerald (Natasha Lester, Hachette)
Wednesday, 24 February 2016
It’s 1920s New York. Evelyn Lockhart has moved to Manhattan to chase her dream of studying at Columbia University and becoming one of the first female doctors in America. In...




