Wednesday, 7 November 2012
The Romance Diaries is a fun, fast-paced and modern read for lovers of the Clueless style of Jane Austen updates. In this first book in a new series written pseudonymously...

Tuesday, 30 October 2012
Some mystery novels ease into the story, and others just thrust you into the middle of everything and let you sort it all out yourself. Shallow Breath is definitely the...

Wednesday, 24 October 2012
I jumped at the chance to review this, the second of Judith Lucy’s memoirs. I found her first go at the genre (The Lucy Family Alphabet) genuinely moving and of...

Tuesday, 16 October 2012
Karen Andrews blogs at miscmum.com and previously edited and published a collection of writing from blogs, Miscellaneous Voices. Crying in the Car is a collection of short stories, essays and...

Tuesday, 9 October 2012
Following his successful books 1788 and The Gold Rush, David Hill’s The Great Race traces the little-known story of the competition between Britain and France to chart the last stretches...

Tuesday, 2 October 2012
'This book reveals two of life’s certainties: one, that Gideon Haigh is an outstanding writer, and two, that Shane Warne’s tabloid-fodder life is utterly compelling. Bring the two together and...

Wednesday, 26 September 2012
Imagine you are sitting in a cosy lounge room somewhere, chatting with literary journalist Ramona Koval about her life and reading interests. There are casual recollections of her past, and...

Wednesday, 19 September 2012
Chasing the Sun is a story about vampires who definitely don’t sparkle. Rather, they take drugs, wear sunglasses at night and have jobs in fields such as pet psychiatry. Honda...

Tuesday, 4 September 2012
Better than Fiction is a brilliant collection of travel stories, written especially for Lonely Planet, which spans the globe in the tradition of the publisher’s previous anthologies such as Unpacked:...

Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Black Spring is a dark, gothic tale inspired by Wuthering Heights. In this fantasy version of 19th-century England, some people are born with magical powers. However, only the male babies...

Tuesday, 21 August 2012
This is a heartfelt and moving collection of short stories that cuts right to the emotional centre of everyday life. With her trademark evocative prose, Cate Kennedy exposes the almost...

Tuesday, 14 August 2012
In The Happiness Show, Australian comedian and writer Catherine Deveny turns her hand to fiction for the first time. The result is a lively, if a little predictable, blend of...

Tuesday, 7 August 2012
Raised in a fundamentalist family of Pentecostals, where sin is an ever-prevalent danger, 13-year-old Ruth must reconcile her faith with reality as dark family secrets unravel over the course of...

Tuesday, 31 July 2012
S.C.U.M. (Students Combined Underground Movement—the name Tom gives his group of misfit buddies) takes the reader on a day in the life of 14-year-old Tom Zurbo-Goldblatt, facing school bullies, his...

Wednesday, 25 July 2012
Judd Bell is a NASA astronaut who has lost his mojo. Ever since his best friend was killed in a shuttle disaster, he’s been doubting himself, and the strain is...