Reviews
Adult fiction
Touch Grass (Mary Colussi, Penguin)
Released June 2026
Mary Colussi’s debut novel, Touch Grass, is the sharp and inventive winner of the 2025 Penguin Literary Prize. This work of speculative fiction takes readers into the not-too-distant future, where strawberries are a nostalgic memory, parents can sell their child’s life rights for profit, and your past can be erased for the right price. Protagonist Charlie is… Read more
The Palace of Lost Virtue (Anthea Hodgson, Penguin)
Released June 2026
In The Palace of Lost Virtue, Anthea Hodgson follows her bestselling novel The War Nurses with a stirring work of historical fiction. Spanning 1898 to 1926, this new novel offers a vivid portrait of life on the Western Australian goldfields, against the backdrop of a true-crime murder mystery. Marigold Harrington, a Melbourne girl raised in… Read more
Adult nonfiction
Detention (Ralph Jackman, A&U)
Released June 2026
Detention is a powerful memoir about Australia’s youth detention system, told from the perspective of a rookie teacher and his fight for the rights of some of our country's most vulnerable and misunderstood kids. When former ABC journalist Ralph Jackman landed his first teaching job at Melbourne’s Parkville Youth Detention Centre, he found himself teaching… Read more
How to Raise Rich Kids: Build Lasting Wealth for Your Children (Sarah Megginson, Pantera)
Released June 2026
Sarah Megginson’s How to Raise Rich Kids is a practical and reassuring guide for parents who want to give their children a strong financial future, regardless of their current income. The book challenges the common belief that wealth is reserved for those who already have savings. Instead, it argues that consistency, time, and small but… Read more
Children's picture books
Where the Heart Is (Shirley Marr, illus Michael Speechley, Walker)
Released June 2026
In Where the Heart Is, Shirley Marr (Countdown to Yesterday) (with illustrations by Michael Speechley) crafts a wistful picture book for readers aged 3 to 6 that plays with the familiar idea that home is where the heart is. Here, “home” is something to be discovered rather than assumed, a theme revealed through the journey… Read more
What’s That Splat? (Johanna Bell, illus Amelia Luscombe, Thames & Hudson)
Released June 2026
What’s That Splat? is the picture-book equivalent of the famous Rorschach test – the psychological assessment that analyses a person’s response to a series of inkblots. Here, writer Johanna Bell and illustrator Amelia Luscombe – the duo behind What Is a Dot? – invite readers aged 2 and up to discover that hidden images and… Read more
Younger readers
Cleopatra: The Girl Who Would Be King (Heroes in the Ancient World #1) (Jackie French, Angus & Robertson)
Released June 2026
Bestselling author and historian Jackie French (Tigg and the Bandicoot Bushranger) tackles the question of what the Egyptian pharaoh Cleopatra was up to during her tween years in Cleopatra: The Girl Who Would Be King, the first book in the Heroes in the Ancient World series. In this delightful romp through antiquity, we follow Cleopatra… Read more
Kid (Peter Carnavas, UQP)
Released June 2026
Award-winning author Peter Carnavas is something of a master of timeless children’s novels full of heart and gentle lessons about life, family, grief and love. This most recent addition to his bibliography, Kid, is no different. Kid is a young goat who lives with a flock of hens on an idyllic farm at the foot… Read more
Young adult
My Wonderful Disgrace (Angourie Rice & Kate Rice, Walker)
Released May 2026
My Wonderful Disgrace by Angourie Rice and Kate Rice (Stuck Up & Stupid) is a darkly comic tale of misjudgements set around the most anticipated night of the year for a graduating class – the school ball. Amy Middleton has spent months imagining the perfect evening and has planned everything: the perfect designer dress, the… Read more
Tearing Myself Together (Anna Whateley, A&U Children’s)
Released May 2026
Anna Whateley’s raw, authentic representations of neurodivergent young women in Tearing Myself Together offer the kind of windows and mirrors that are still too rare in Australian young adult fiction. Drawing on lived experience, Whateley (author of the CBCA-shortlisted Peta Lyre’s Rating Normal) explores the endurance required to navigate a society that often lacks understanding… Read more
Recently released titles
The Endling (Keely Jobe, Scribe)
Released April 2026
Keely Jobe’s debut novel, The Endling, tells an enthralling story of an isolated feminist collective hidden on a mountain in the Australian bush where all the women mysteriously fall pregnant on the same day. The novel primarily follows two women: Frank, one of the oldest members of the group, who lives in seclusion with her… Read more
Come Home, Bigibila (Corey Tutt & Irma Gold, illus Jessica Tedim, A&U Children’s)
Released April 2026
For parents and teachers seeking engaging, educational First Nations stories, Come Home, Bigibila is an ideal starting point. Written by Kamilaroi man Corey Tutt (The First Scientists) and Irma Gold (Where the Heart Is), this warm, coming-of-age book explores the search for belonging through its central character, the beloved Australian echidna, known as Bigibila in… Read more
