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WBN advance reviews >

A Life Song (Jane Godwin, illus Anna Walker, Puffin) 

Tuesday, 29 August 2023
The latest masterpiece by dream team Jane Godwin and Anna Walker, A Life Song is a gentle rhyming picture book that ponders growing up and finding your place in the world. ‘When you are...

The Vanishing Point (Andrea Hotere, Ultimo) 

Tuesday, 29 August 2023
Journalist and researcher Andrea Hotere has put her investigative skills to work in The Vanishing Point: a dual-timeline historical mystery novel concerning Diego Velázquez’s 1656 royal portrait, Las Meninas. In 17th-century...

The Things We Live With (Gemma Nisbet, Upswell) 

Tuesday, 29 August 2023
Gemma Nisbet is a writer and journalist who holds onto things, but this book isn’t about hoarding. It’s not even a self-help antidote to ‘Marie Kondo-ing’ your stuff. In this...

The Rust Red Land (Robyn Bishop, Spinifex) 

Tuesday, 22 August 2023
Set in country New South Wales beginning in 1890, The Rust Red Land follows Matilda as she comes of age through to the 1930s. She does all that is expected of her as...

Gunflower (Laura Jean McKay, Scribe) 

Tuesday, 22 August 2023
Laura Jean McKay’s Gunflower is a vivid and tantalising short story collection where animals are as seamlessly anthropomorphised as humans are animalised. McKay asks readers to suspend their narrative expectations and blurs...

Unfinished Woman (Robyn Davidson, Bloomsbury) 

Tuesday, 22 August 2023
Robyn Davidson is perhaps best known for her novel Tracks and has a writing career spanning over 40 years. Her latest, Unfinished Woman, is a nomadic memoir that details the author’s traumatic childhood,...

The Observologist (Giselle Clarkson, Gecko) 

Tuesday, 22 August 2023
An observologist is someone who makes scientific expeditions every day and notices interesting details in the world around them. This is the first thing we learn in The Observologist by Giselle Clarkson,...

Edenglassie (Melissa Lucashenko, UQP) 

Tuesday, 15 August 2023
Melissa Lucashenko’s Edenglassie is a literary epic that skilfully weaves between the present day, where Grannie Eddie is looked after by her feisty granddaughter Winona and Dr Johnny, and mid-1850s Brisbane, where...

Unholy Terrors (Lyndall Clipstone, Penguin) 

Tuesday, 15 August 2023
Unholy Terrors is an alluring, gothic tale of forbidden love and shifting allegiances in a land of magic and monsters. Everline Blackthorn is not like the other wardens who guard...

Kinky History (Esmé Louise James, Pantera) 

Tuesday, 15 August 2023
Kinky History is based on the wildly popular TikTok account we all needed. Author Esmé Louise James (@esme.louisee) is a TikTok phenomenon with over 2.3 million followers, and it’s pretty...

Green Dot (Madeleine Gray, A&U) 

Tuesday, 15 August 2023
Madeline Gray’s debut novel, Green Dot, which has enjoyed a lot of pre-publication buzz, is a surprising read. With some superficial markers of the recently popular ‘sad girl’ novel—particularly in...

Prima Facie (Suzie Miller, Picador) 

Tuesday, 8 August 2023
Prima Facie, Suzie Miller’s debut novel (adapted from her internationally award-winning 2019 play of the same name), is a relentless, arresting story of a criminal defence barrister whose passionate faith...

Salt River Road (Molly Schmidt, Fremantle) 

Tuesday, 8 August 2023
Radio producer, journalist and now award-winning writer Molly Schmidt has poured her heart into her first book Salt River Road. ‘Write what you know’, they say, and having lost her...

The Modern (Anna Kate Blair, Scribner) 

Tuesday, 8 August 2023
Art aficionados and literary enthusiasts will feel at home in The Modern, in which Anna Kate Blair navigates New York City’s modern art institutions. Sophia is a MoMA fellow in NYC, who grapples with her instinct to sentimentalise her...

Finding My Bella Vita (Pia Miranda, Hachette) 

Tuesday, 8 August 2023
Pia Miranda’s memoir, Finding My Bella Vita, is like a long phone call with a friend. Based in Melbourne, Miranda is an actor best known for her role as Josie...