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WBN advance reviews >

Twenty-Two Impressions (Jessica Friedmann, Scribe) 

Tuesday, 13 August 2024
For years, Jessica Friedmann (Things That Helped) circled the tarot, feeling a combination of mild embarrassment, curiosity and intellectual bewilderment when a pack was inevitably drawn at the end of...

No One Will Know (Rose Carlyle, Text) 

Tuesday, 13 August 2024
Pregnant, homeless, and alone, 24-year-old Eve Sylvester is faced with a desperate future when a meeting at her dead fiancé’s gravesite offers a chance too glorious to refuse: nannying for...

Dusk (Robbie Arnott, Picador) 

The cover of Robbie Arnott's novel Dusk Tuesday, 6 August 2024
In his fourth novel, Dusk, Robbie Arnott returns to familiar terrain. ‘Dusk’ is the name the highland graziers have given to a puma who has begun to ‘take’ shepherds and...

The Ledge (Christian White, Affirm) 

Tuesday, 6 August 2024
When reading author and screenwriter Christian White’s fourth novel, The Ledge, it’s worth remembering the adage: ‘When you assume, you make an ass of u and me.’ As a seasoned...

Matia (Emily Tsokos Purtill, UWA Publishing) 

Tuesday, 6 August 2024
Emily Tsokos Purtill’s debut novel, Matia, is a generational story that follows the lives of four Greek women in Australia over 125 years. Sia emigrated from Greece to Perth in...

Karkalla at Home (Mindy Woods, Murdoch) 

Tuesday, 30 July 2024
Karkalla at Home: Native foods & everyday recipes for connecting to Country by Mindy Woods is a remarkable cookbook showcasing contemporary recipes with native Australian ingredients. The book ‘extends an...

Townsend of the Ranges (Peter Crowley, NLA) 

Tuesday, 30 July 2024
In Townsend of the Ranges, Peter Crowley pieces together from archival materials the biography of Thomas Scott Townsend (1812–1869), a surveyor previously forgotten by history. With the voice of a...

rock flight (Hasib Hourani, Giramondo) 

Tuesday, 30 July 2024
Hasib Hourani’s debut, rock flight, is a structurally experimental long-form poem of grief, rage and resistance against the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestine. Hourani’s voice is assertive, demanding attention from...

The Death of Dora Black (Lainie Anderson, Hachette) 

Tuesday, 30 July 2024
Award-winning historian and journalist Lainie Anderson brings her research skills to the world of crime fiction in this engrossing and entertaining novel about Kate Cocks, the first policewoman in the...

Sarah Evans (Bernice Barry, Echo) 

Tuesday, 30 July 2024
Sarah Evans is a richly imagined and meticulously researched historical fiction novel based on a true story. The tale begins in grimly Dickensian early 19th-century Clerkenwell, London, where powerful men...

The Best Witch in Paris (Lauren Crozier, Text) 

Tuesday, 30 July 2024
Lauren Crozier won the 2023 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing for her middle-grade novel The Best Witch in Paris. With a charm reminiscent of Jill Murphy’s Worst...

Immortal Dark (Tigest Girma, Lothian) 

Tuesday, 23 July 2024
Tigest Girma’s debut novel, Immortal Dark, is the book YA readers of dark academia and romantasy have been waiting for—something with the violence and passion of genre bestsellers such as...

Inheritance (Genevieve Gannon, Pantera) 

Tuesday, 23 July 2024
Inheritance is the latest novel by Genevieve Gannon, bestselling author of The Mothers. In the not-too-distant future, scientists use eugenics to protect the next generation against viruses and diseases. At the same...

The First Friend (Malcolm Knox, A&U) 

Tuesday, 23 July 2024
When a novel begins with historical maps of the Soviet Union, a timeline of events, and character lists, there can be some trepidation about whether the commitment required will be...

Kitchen Sentimental (Annie Smithers, T&H) 

Tuesday, 23 July 2024
Why do we cook, and where do we learn to appreciate food? In her new memoir, Kitchen Sentimental, chef and author Annie Smithers (Recipe for a Kinder Life) tackles these...

Cherrywood (Jock Serong, HarperCollins) 

Tuesday, 23 July 2024
Jock Serong’s Cherrywood obscures time and place, braiding together the fates of his characters through extraordinary ventures and chance meetings. In his latest novel, Serong (The Burning Island, On the...