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Chasing the Valley (Skye Melki-Wegner, Random House)
Released July 2013
Sixteen-year-old Danika is a street kid in a world where a tyrant king keeps the population cowed with alchemy bombs dropped by royal biplanes. The only way to escape to... Read more
Jeremy (Chris Faille, illus by Danny Snell, Working Title Press)
Released July 2013
This picture book tells the story of a young kookaburra. He is discovered by the family cat when he is just a baby, with bulgy eyes and no feathers. The... Read more
Lightning (Felicity Volk, Picador)
Released July 2013
A road novel, a tale of magic realism, a story of two outsiders finding each other, and a search for identity saga. Lightning, an ambitious, finely written novel from first-time... Read more
Mr Wigg (Inga Simpson, Hachette)
Released July 2013
The book that comes to mind on having finished Inga Simpson’s Mr Wigg is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. They share nothing much in common; Mr Wigg is set... Read more
Heist (Robert Schofield, Allen & Unwin
Released July 2013
Opening with a daring robbery at a Kalgoorlie gold mine, Heist is an action novel that doesn’t really live up to its potential. Its cagey hero Gareth Ford is on... Read more
Fukushima: Japan’s Tsunami and the Inside Story of the Nuclear Meltdowns (Mark Willacy, Macmillan)
Released July 2013
ABC journalist Mark Willacy won a Walkley Award for his coverage of the 2011 tsunami and subsequent nuclear disasters in Japan. In the years since he has conducted interviews with... Read more
The Asylum (John Harwood, Vintage)
Released June 2013
In this suspenseful gothic thriller set in late Victorian England, John Harwood (The Ghost Writer, Séance) has clearly had fun with the genre while creating a compelling page-turner with enough... Read more
A Bitter Taste (Annie Hauxwell, Michael Joseph)
Released June 2013
Catherine Berlin, a private investigator with a heroin addiction, is battling the unseasonal heat of London as well as physical scars from an earlier investigation. She is also grappling with... Read more
just_a_girl (Kirsten Krauth, UWA Publishing)
Released June 2013
Kirsten Krauth’s debut novel is by turns frustrating and exhilarating. On one hand, the plot is fraught with clichés connected to the too-familiar ‘rite of passage’ plotline. On the other,... Read more
Now Showing (Ron Elliott, Fremantle Press)
Released June 2013
Over the years Perth-based screenwriter Ron Elliott has accumulated a drawer full of part-finished scripts or sketches for film or TV projects that haven’t come to fruition. Rather than letting... Read more
Out of Shape: Debunking Myths about Fashion and Fit (Mel Campbell, Affirm Press)
Released June 2013
Mel Campbell’s first book is a lively and personal waltz through the history and culture of clothing size and fit. Campbell cuts through the rhetoric of clothing designers and fashion... Read more
Holy Bible (Vanessa Russell, Sleepers)
Released July 2013
It’s quite a bold move to name your book Holy Bible; it could pique curiosity or incite alienation. Let’s hope it’s the former, as regardless of first impressions, Vanessa Russell... Read more
Three Hours Late (Nicole Trope, A&U)
Released June 2013
This is the second adult novel from Nicole Trope, author of The Boy under the Table, and like that tale, it also delves into the lives of families enduring hellish... Read more
The Accident (Kate Hendrick, Text)
Released July 2013
‘We can’t always control what happens to us, we can only control what we do about it.’ Though difficult to grasp at any age, Kate Hendrick brings this message home... Read more
Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia (David Hunt, Black Inc.)
Released August 2013
Australian history never looked like this! Historian David Hunt takes aim at some of Australia’s historical sacred cows with his unique brand of irreverent and often profane humour. Cook, Philip... Read more
Battlers & Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia (Andrew Leigh, Redback)
Released July 2013
This short book is the first in what promises to be a great new series from Black Inc. called ‘Redbacks’. The series aims to introduce readers to important national debates... Read more
Lexicon (Max Barry, Mulholland)
Released July 2013
The entire town of Broken Hill has been killed off by a deadly weapon: a word. And it seems as though the word is still in there. Only one man... Read more
Transactions (Ali Alizadeh, UQP)
Released July 2013
Ali Alizadeh’s critically acclaimed book of poetry Ashes in the Air was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards last year and I would be surprised if Transactions doesn’t receive... Read more
Unearthed (Tracy Ryan, Fremantle Press)
Released July 2013
‘Now you are dead perhaps we can really talk.’ Ryan’s last poetry collection, The Argument, won the WA Premier’s Book Award for poetry and her previous volume, Scar Revision, was... Read more
Dead Cat Bounce (Peter Cotton, Scribe)
Released July 2013
Timeliness is next to godliness if you’re a popular fiction author, and Peter Cotton’s debut novel Dead Cat Bounce is about as on the money as it gets in terms... Read more
