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WBN advance reviews >

Lovesick (Lillian Telford, HQ Fiction) 

Tuesday, 19 May 2026
Lillian Telford’s debut novel, Lovesick, explores love, obsession, abandonment, addiction and heartbreak, exposing the emotional fractures of characters shaped by trauma. When the lives of two lonely young people collide...

I Made This Just for You (Chris Ames, Ultimo) 

Tuesday, 19 May 2026
Chris Ames’s short story collection, I Made This Just for You, is an astonishing debut and a highly anticipated one after winning the 2025 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished...

Fish Don’t Hop (JoJo Leslie, Woodslane Press) 

Tuesday, 19 May 2026
Fish Don’t Hop! by JoJo Leslie is a heartwarming story that takes children on a journey of discovery through nature and the ways animals grow and change. Maeve is excited...

A Short History of Longans (Mirandi Riwoe, UQP) 

Tuesday, 12 May 2026
Mirandi Riwoe’s A Short History of Longans follows 4 members of the same family across 2 centuries, moving backwards through time from a climate-changed Queensland in 2049 to colonial New...

The Rebound (Fiona Harris, A&U Children’s) 

Tuesday, 12 May 2026
The Rebound, by award-winning author Fiona Harris (The Embarrassing Confessions of Gracie Sparks), is a topical, reflective middle-grade novel about a basketball-loving boy navigating the pressures of growing up in...

The End of Romance (Maria Takolander, Text) 

Tuesday, 12 May 2026
In her debut novel, The End of Romance, Maria Takolander presents a dystopian world in which all boys are conscripted to the army at 16, sent on a mission from...

Neighbourhood Watch (Lauren Williams, Affirm) 

Tuesday, 12 May 2026
Lauren Williams’s debut novel, Neighbourhood Watch, is a compulsive crime thriller that opens with a bang and delivers a series of shocking twists, a side of dark humour and a...

Good Intentions (Jessy Wu, Macmillan) 

Tuesday, 5 May 2026
Personal and professional integrity face off in Jessy Wu’s highly engaging debut, Good Intentions – a fast-paced millennial romance set in the worlds of investigative journalism and futures trading. Nadia...

One Word (Melissa-Jane Fogarty, Lothian) 

Tuesday, 5 May 2026
Melissa-Jane Fogarty’s One Word is a gentle yet powerful First Nations story about a young girl, Myra, who loves to stay with Pop. When she overhears him speaking to his...

Without a Trace (Susannah Glenn, Pantera) 

Tuesday, 5 May 2026
Susannah Glenn’s second novel, Without a Trace, follows Charlotte Clarke, a once confident pilot and the daughter of a scenic flight company owner. While Charlotte is grieving the loss of...

Worry Doll (Laura McPhee-Browne, Scribe) 

Tuesday, 5 May 2026
Worry Doll is the immersive and introspective third novel by Laura McPhee-Browne (Cherry Beach, Little Plum). It follows two women: Heloise, a 36-year-old Melburnian living with her partner, a man,...

LIT (Anna Woods, Echo) 

Tuesday, 28 April 2026
Auckland-based writer Anna Woods’ debut novel, LIT, is a psychological thriller set in the same city, centring on 3 emotionally and professionally entangled architects: Virginia Ishak (Gin), Clarissa Taylor (Clary)...

The Secret Garden Club (Wendy Lynn Newton, Macmillan) 

Tuesday, 28 April 2026
Whimsical, witty and genuinely heartwarming, Wendy Lynn Newton’s The Secret Garden Club is a striking debut. When 52-year-old lapsed artist Hilary finds her husband of 30 years, newly retired engineer...

Night Swimming (Sharon Kernot, Text) 

Night Swimming book cover Tuesday, 21 April 2026
Sharon Kernot’s first foray into adult fiction, Night Swimming, is both a suspenseful verse novel and a ghost story in which the narrator of the book haunts herself. Night Swimming...

A Flash in the Dust (Meg Caddy, UQP) 

A Flash in the Dust cover Tuesday, 21 April 2026
Set in Western Australia in 1899, Meg Caddy’s queer YA historical novel A Flash in the Dust follows Gilberta and Norah, who are imprisoned in Fremantle Asylum and escape into...