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WBN advance reviews >

Believe in Me (Lucy Neave, UQP) 

Tuesday, 20 July 2021
Bet is a Sydney-based veterinarian raised in Adelaide by her single mother, Sarah. When Bet starts questioning her gender, identity and place in the world, she begins to put together the...

Treasure in the Lake (Jason Pamment, A&U) 

Tuesday, 20 July 2021
Friendship, hidden cities and all-round adventure lie at the heart of Jason Pamment’s immersive graphic novel Treasure in the Lake. Sam and Iris have been best friends since they were little, but as the two...

Maxine (Bob Graham, Walker Books)  

Wednesday, 14 July 2021
A ‘companion book’ for Bob Graham’s beloved Max (which was 20 years old in 2020!), Maxine does stand alone but is not as rich if you haven’t first read Max, as it...

My Friend Fox (Heidi Everett, Ultimo Press)  

Tuesday, 13 July 2021
This memoir from mental health recovery advocate Heidi Everett is a thoroughly real and stunningly evocative retelling of her life as a person with diagnosed mental illness. Everett tells the...

Anything But Fine (Tobias Madden, Penguin)  

Tuesday, 13 July 2021
Anything But Fine is the young adult debut of Tobias Madden, who works in publishing and is part of the #LoveOzYA community. Like his main character, Luca, Madden grew up...

The Magpie Wing (Max Easton, Giramondo)  

Tuesday, 13 July 2021
Max Easton’s The Magpie Wing is a moving portrait of a city and region undergoing enormous change, told through the perspectives of three unique, sympathetic and vulnerable characters. The book...

Private Prosecution (Lisa Ellery, Fremantle Press)  

Tuesday, 13 July 2021
Lawyer-turned-writer Lisa Ellery uses her knowledge and experience in the legal sector to round out detailed judicial proceedings in her debut thriller, building a believable foundation for the tense drama...

Road Tripping with Pearl Nash (Poppy Nwosu, Wakefield) 

Wednesday, 7 July 2021
Since her 2018 debut Making Friends with Alice Dyson, shortlisted for the Adelaide Festival Unpublished Manuscript Award and the Readings Young Adult Book Prize, Poppy Nwosu has been creating protagonists that are a...

Happy Hour (Jacquie Byron, A&U) 

Wednesday, 7 July 2021
Three years after her husband’s death, 65-year-old artist Frances Calderwood has developed a drinking problem and squirrelled herself away from human contact. However, the cocoon built by the quirky, acerbic...

A Trip to the Hospital (Freda Chiu, A&U Children) 

Tuesday, 29 June 2021
Freda Chiu’s first picture book, aimed at children aged three to seven, provides a friendly introduction to the idea of hospitals and what might happen in them. Largely informational rather...

An Insider’s Plague Year (Peter Doherty, MUP) 

Tuesday, 29 June 2021
Laureate Professor Peter Doherty is one of the most well placed individuals to write a walk-through of the past year and a half of pandemic life. A Nobel Prize-winning immunologist...

Half My Luck (Samera Kamaleddine, HarperCollins) 

Wednesday, 23 June 2021
The first winner of HarperCollins’ Matilda Children’s Literature Prize is a warm-hearted and authentic coming-of-age story about the impact of race and place on our sense of self and belonging....

Dark as Last Night (Tony Birch, UQP) 

Wednesday, 23 June 2021
It’s a deceptively simple premise: two young brothers bond over a newfound love of bike riding. But as ‘Bicycle Thieves’ unfolds, a sweet yet dark and sorrowful undercurrent starts to...

The Airways (Jennifer Mills, Picador) 

Thursday, 17 June 2021
Jennifer Mills’s The Airways unsettles the boundaries between consciousness, self and the physical world, deep-diving into the parallels between the workings of the human body and the cities we navigate....

Devils in Danger (Samantha Wheeler, UQP) 

Wednesday, 16 June 2021
When strange things start happening around 11-year-old Killarney’s house—missing clothes, screaming in the night—she becomes determined to solve the mystery. Killarney soon discovers that the culprit is a wild Tasmanian...

Sugar Town Queens (Malla Nunn, A&U) 

Tuesday, 8 June 2021
Sugar Town Queens is a young adult coming-of-age novel by Malla Nunn, author of When the Ground is Hard. Her latest book follows 15-year-old Amandla, who is mixed-raced and growing...