Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

Image. Advertisement:

Friday Unlocked reviews >

Every Wild Soul (Katherine Johnson, HarperCollins) 

Tuesday, 31 March 2026
Eco-literature has been booming in recent years, thanks largely to writers including James Bradley, Richard Flanagan, Tim Winton, Charlotte Wood and Donna Cameron. Winner of the inaugural Australian Fiction Prize,...

Periodic Bitch (Emma Hardy, A&U) 

Tuesday, 24 March 2026
In Periodic Bitch, Emma Hardy delivers a memoir that is both intellectually rigorous and literary in style, interrogating the cultural construction of the “female monster” alongside her lived experience of premenstrual...

Capture (Amanda Lohrey, Text) 

The cover of "Capture" by Amanda Lohrey. Tuesday, 24 March 2026
In Amanda Lohrey’s Capture, ageing psychiatrist James Mather is commissioned to research psychological explanations for alien capture experiences. His interviews with “experiencers” – whose stories he quickly finds to be...

Silvia (Maya Caruso, Echo) 

Tuesday, 24 March 2026
Midlife awakening lies at the heart of Maya Caruso’s impressive debut novel, Silvia. This character-driven novel follows 42-year-old Silvia, a divorced daughter of a widowed Italian matriarch, Silvia Senior, whose...

A Little Unwell (Kerry Jewell, Hachette) 

Tuesday, 24 March 2026
Kerry Jewell’s debut novel, A Little Unwell, is a candid medical drama that draws back the privacy curtain on the life of a young resident doctor working rotations at an...

Once Upon Tomorrow (Karen Comer, Lothian) 

Tuesday, 17 March 2026
Once Upon Tomorrow is a complex young adult verse novel by CBCA-winning author Karen Comer (Grace Notes). The novel weaves together 3 alternating perspectives: Miri, an ambitious Year 12 student...

The Ruiners (Ellena Savage, Summit) 

Tuesday, 17 March 2026
Ellena Savage’s debut novel, The Ruiners, introduces a narrator suspended between self-awareness and self-sabotage: a 29-year-old waitress, working at casino-adjacent lobster shack Claws, whose life feels both theatrically doomed and...

Margaret, Are You Leaving? (Dianne Yarwood, Hachette) 

Tuesday, 17 March 2026
Following her much-loved debut, The Wakes, Dianne Yarwood’s latest novel, Margaret, Are You Leaving?, is a contemplative exploration of mother–daughter relationships, identity and the accumulation of moments that make up a...

Mantle (Romy Ash, Ultimo) 

Tuesday, 17 March 2026
Romy Ash’s Mantle is a novel that settles slowly and irrevocably, like sediment. Set on a windswept Tasmanian coastline, it follows Ursula as she returns to care for her dying...

The Thornbacks (Chloe Wilson, Hamish Hamilton) 

Tuesday, 10 March 2026
Chloe Wilson’s debut novel, The Thornbacks, follows stepsisters Gertie and Tabitha: a pair of morticians who – apart from a sinister hobby – are mostly harmless. Come “date night”, they...

Don’t Let Them Leave (Mike Lucas, Penguin) 

Tuesday, 10 March 2026
In Don’t Let Them Leave, Mike Lucas (What We All Saw) delivers a creepy and suspenseful historical thriller for readers aged 12 and over. The story follows Charlotte, Jack and...

Henry Goes Bush (Wayne Marshall, Picador) 

Tuesday, 10 March 2026
Wayne Marshall blends fact and fiction (including time travel) to explore alternative versions of Henry Lawson’s 1892 trip to Bourke. Lawson was 25, depressed, nearly deaf and already battling alcoholism...

The Farmer’s Pyjamas (Ruth Paul, Walker) 

Tuesday, 3 March 2026
Ruth Paul’s The Farmer’s Pyjamas is a playful, light-hearted rhyming story that puts a humorous spin on daily life in the farmyard. After a hard day’s work tending to her...

The Missing Mother (Mali Cornish, A&U) 

Tuesday, 3 March 2026
In The Missing Mother, Mali Cornish (Judgement Day) crafts a gripping domestic thriller centred on Elspeth, who returns to Geelong from New York when her mother Simone vanishes. The story...

Phantom Days (Angela O’Keeffe, UQP) 

Cover of Phantom Days Tuesday, 3 March 2026
“A book comes into the world knowing it is a saviour, of sorts.” So begins Phantom Days, the 3rd novel by award-winning author Angela O’Keeffe (The Sitter, Night Blue), a...

Running in Circles (Shivaun Plozza, UQP) 

Tuesday, 3 March 2026
In Running in Circles, Shivaun Plozza (The Worst Perfect Moment, The Boy, The Wolf and the Stars) brings climate science and extraterrestrial speculation together in a coming-of-age suspense novel set...

Cast Away (Francesca de Tores, Bloomsbury) 

Tuesday, 3 March 2026
Award-winning author Francesca de Tores’s Cast Away is a fascinating and exquisitely detailed fictionalisation of sailor and navigator Alexander Selkirk’s 4 years marooned on a deserted island in the 1700s....