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WBN advance reviews >

The Branded (Jo Riccioni, Pantera Press) 

Tuesday, 26 July 2022
Twins Nara and Osha are Pure—unmarked by the plague that ravaged their continent. Behind the walls of the isolated citadel of Isfalk, the course of their lives is clearly prescribed:...

Runt (Craig Silvey, illus by Sara Acton, A&U) 

Tuesday, 26 July 2022
• Craig Silvey was charged with various child exploitation offences in early 2026 Nobody knows where Runt came from, but everybody knows he’ll only listen to Annie. Annie’s instinct is...

Unnecessary Drama (Nina Kenwood, Text) 

Tuesday, 19 July 2022
Things are going well for Brooke. Fresh out of high school and going straight into university, she is determined to reinvent herself from the nerdy and awkward person she once...

A Kind of Magic (Anna Spargo-Ryan, Ultimo) 

Tuesday, 19 July 2022
It’s still quite something to read a book that speaks the truth about mental health. A Kind of Magic is Anna Spargo-Ryan’s epic, relentlessly honest autobiography of a life lived...

Limberlost (Robbie Arnott, Text) 

Cover of Limberlost Tuesday, 19 July 2022
Fifteen-year-old Ned helps his father and sister on the family orchard while his brothers are away at war. Seeking escape from his sister’s worry and his father’s silence, Ned traps...

Humanity’s Moment (Joëlle Gergis, Black Inc.) 

Tuesday, 19 July 2022
‘In a single lifetime, humans have become a force of nature,’ Joëlle Gergis reminds us in Humanity’s Moment. As a climate scientist and lead author of the UN’s IPCC Sixth...

Moon Sugar (Angela Meyer, Transit Lounge) 

Tuesday, 19 July 2022
Mila—40, single, childless—is used to attending to the needs and wants of others. Her own wants, particularly her sexual desires, have always come second. Kyle, a tentative man in his...

A Girl Called Corpse (Reece Carter, A&U) 

Tuesday, 19 July 2022
Reece Carter—who previously brought us The Garden Apothecary—has turned his hand to prose for his debut middle-grade novel A Girl Called Corpse. Corpse is a ghost with no memory of...

Seeing Other People (Diana Reid, Ultimo) 

Wednesday, 13 July 2022
Eleanor and Charlie are sisters in their 20s, emerging from the pandemic and trying to decide what they want from their lives. Intellectual, straitlaced Eleanor has just broken up with...

All That’s Left Unsaid (Tracey Lien, HQ Fiction) 

Tuesday, 12 July 2022
Brutally murdered inside a restaurant on the night of his high-school graduation, Ky Tran’s brother, Denny, has suffered a ‘bad death’. It is 1996, and when Ky (pronounced ‘key’) travels...

The Upwelling (Lystra Rose, Lothian)

Tuesday, 12 July 2022
Kirra doesn’t understand how or why, but her dreams come true. And no one believes her, not even Nan, who told Kirra to never mention her ‘power’. One night, she...

The Jammer (Nova Weetman, UQP) 

Tuesday, 12 July 2022
Fred has roller derby in her blood. As soon as she could walk, her mum had her skating. It was their thing—and a place where Fred always knew she belonged—until...

The Sun Walks Down (Fiona McFarlane, A&U) 

Tuesday, 12 July 2022
Fiona McFarlane’s debut novel The Night Guest and short story collection The High Places received critical acclaim. Now teaching creative writing at the University of California, Berkeley, the author seals...

People Who Lunch (Sally Olds, Upswell) 

Wednesday, 6 July 2022
People Who Lunch is the much-anticipated first book by Melbourne-based writer Sally Olds. Known among a devoted coterie of fans for her long-form standalone essays, Olds’ first full collection focuses...

A Message for Nasty (Roderick Fry, Awa Press)

Tuesday, 5 July 2022
Roderick Fry’s debut novel is the harrowing wartime story of a family fighting to reunite amid the destruction of the Second World War. The plot follows a married couple, Marie...

The Wintrish Girl (Melanie La’Brooy, UQP) 

Tuesday, 5 July 2022
Melanie La’Brooy’s The Wintrish Girl is an exciting middle-grade fantasy debut. Penn is an outsider in the strict world of Aralyia, a slave to the princess Seraphine, who is orphaned...

The Tree at Number 43 (Jess McGeachin, Puffin) 

Tuesday, 5 July 2022
Jess McGeachin has fast established himself as an exciting and skilled creator of picture books, drawing on his work at Melbourne Museum to celebrate the beauty of the natural world...

Where You Left Us (Rhiannon Wilde, UQP) 

Tuesday, 28 June 2022
Rhiannon Wilde’s second YA novel, Where You Left Us, is as bewitching as her Glendower Award–winning debut Henry Hamlet’s Heart. It follows the two Prince sisters, Cinnamon and Scarlett, who...

Bon and Lesley (Shaun Prescott, Giramondo) 

Tuesday, 28 June 2022
Shaun Prescott continues his existential explorations of modern life in his second novel, which follows his 2017 debut The Town. In the opening pages of Bon and Lesley we meet...

Birdbrain (Kelli Anne Hawkins, HarperCollins) 

Tuesday, 28 June 2022
In her return to middle-grade fiction, Kelli Anne Hawkins delivers another madcap caper for 10- to 12-year-olds that has puns aplenty and some genuine chuckles. Hadley Boggs is 11 and...