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WBN advance reviews >

The Mother Wound (Amani Haydar, Macmillan)

Tuesday, 25 May 2021
Like her own mother before her, Amani Haydar lost her mother young. In 2006 Haydar’s grandmother was killed in the 2006 Israeli–Lebanese conflict. In 2015 Haydar’s mother was murdered by...

The Memory Thief (Leonie Agnew, Puffin) 

Tuesday, 25 May 2021
Following her last spellbinding tale The Impossible Boy, Leonie Agnew has created another spine-tingling adventure novel for middle-grade readers. The Memory Thief tells the magical story of an unlikely friendship...

Gentle and Fierce (Vanessa Berry, Giramondo) 

Tuesday, 18 May 2021
If you grew up in the 80s you’ll probably remember that infamous scene in The NeverEnding Story where Artax the horse sinks forever into the Swamp of Sadness. Sydney writer...

Shockingly Good Stories (R A Spratt, Puffin) 

Tuesday, 18 May 2021
The foreword to R A Spratt’s latest middle-grade book declares that the collection of stories the reader holds in their hands was created specifically to spread joy in challenging times....

After Story (Larissa Behrendt, UQP) 

Tuesday, 18 May 2021
'Books have been my lifeline, my escape.' Jasmine’s family was forever changed by the loss of her sister when she was three. Now a lawyer, Jasmine is invited on a...

Rainfish (Andrew Paterson, Text) 

Tuesday, 11 May 2021
Debut middle-grade novel Rainfish is set in the 1980s during the uncomplicated glory days of Transformers and Star Wars, when ‘being offline’ meant you left your phone off the hook....

The Shut Ins (Katherine Brabon, A&U)

Tuesday, 11 May 2021
When Mai Takeda runs into an old acquaintance at a train station in Nagoya, it begins a narrative that weaves the lives of four people together in unexpected ways. Mai,...

The Rabbits (Sophie Overett, Vintage) 

Tuesday, 4 May 2021
The Rabbits is a tense suburban drama that probes the limits of family bonds and human potential. Sophie Overett, who won the 2020 Penguin Literary Prize for the manuscript, has...

Catch Us the Foxes (Nicola West, S&S)

Tuesday, 4 May 2021
Marlowe ‘Lo’ Robertson is an ambitious young journalist given the job of covering the annual show for the local paper. When Lo discovers the body of her friend, reigning showgirl...

Echo in the Memory (Cameron Nunn, Walker Books)

Tuesday, 27 April 2021
Cameron Nunn presents an ambitious work of historical fiction in his latest novel Echo in the Memory. Seamlessly telling the stories of two adolescents existing almost 200 years apart, the...

The School (Brendan James Murray, Picador) 

Tuesday, 20 April 2021
Brendan James Murray is a full-time high school English teacher and an award-winning writer. His new nonfiction work The School chronicles a year in his classroom, in a public school...

We Were Not Men (Campbell Mattinson, Fourth Estate)

Tuesday, 20 April 2021
Campbell Mattinson’s We Were Not Men charts the story of twin brothers Jon and Eden in an episodic exploration of male kinship. Told from Jon’s perspective, the book begins with the...

The Covered Wife (Lisa Emanuel, Pantera Press) 

Tuesday, 20 April 2021
When young lawyer Sarah meets the smart, handsome Daniel, the attraction is instant. Influenced by the charismatic Rabbi Menachem Lev and his wife Chani, who take the new couple under...

Who Gets to be Smart (Bri Lee, A&U) 

Wednesday, 14 April 2021
Who Gets to be Smart opens with a walking tour of Oxford. Author Bri Lee is at the university to visit her friend, a freshly minted Rhodes Scholar. As the...

Kunyi (Kunyi June Anne McInerney, Magabala) 

Wednesday, 14 April 2021
Kunyi, an illustrated memoir of Kunyi June Anne McInerney’s childhood, collects snapshot moments and stories of her life, told in her own words and accompanied by her paintings. The lively...

One Hundred Days (Alice Pung, Black Inc.)

Thursday, 8 April 2021
Is there a right way to love? Karuna feels suffocated by her mother—and her entrapment multiplies when her dad leaves and she’s forced to move away from private school and...

A Paper Inheritance (Dymphna Stella Rees, UQP) 

Wednesday, 7 April 2021
Leslie Rees and Coralie Clarke Rees were a literary partnership, contemporaneous with two more famous Australian literary couples of the 20th century, Ruth Park and D’Arcy Niland, and Charmian Clift...