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Dark Serpent (Kylie Chan, HarperVoyager)
Released May 2013
This is the first book in Kylie Chan’s ‘Celestial Battle’ trilogy, which combines martial arts and magic, although it is the seventh book in an ongoing story that began in... Read more
Creative Writing for Beginners (Colin Batrouney, Affirm Press)
Released May 2013
Colin Batrouney explores the redemptive power of fiction in his second novel. Books have given Joel’s otherwise aimless life a direction of sorts, and while he is a keen reader,... Read more
Elemental (Amanda Curtin, UWA Publishing)
Released May 2013
Elemental continues Amanda Curtin’s fruitful fascination with memory, history and the generational legacies of family, following her debut novel The Sinkings and her collection of short stories Inherited. The bulk... Read more
My Beautiful Enemy (Cory Taylor, Text)
Released May 2013
Cory Taylor’s debut novel—the critically acclaimed Me and Mr Booker—was a brilliant and darkly comic coming-of-age story. My Beautiful Enemy, her second novel, is a story of love, desire and... Read more
The Railwayman’s Wife (Ashley Hay, A&U)
Released April 2013
Set on the south coast of NSW in Thirroul in 1948, where D H Lawrence wrote Kangaroo, this stunning novel follows the lives of several seemingly disparate characters. Dr Draper... Read more
Steeplechase (Krissy Kneen, Text)
Released April 2013
The celebrated artist Emily Reich is worth millions and lauded by the art community. Her younger sister Bec has scraped by with what she perceives to be a fairly ordinary... Read more
The Memory Trap (Andrea Goldsmith, Fourth Estate)
Released May 2013
What a mess people can make of their lives. In this remarkable novel we meet Nina, a consultant on memorial projects, and her apparently perfect husband Daniel, who suddenly dumps... Read more
Privacy (Genna De Bont, Fourth Estate)
Released April 2013
Warren ‘Wren’ Fox is a 35-year-old who lives with his mother in a one-bedroom house in semi-rural Victoria. He works for his neighbour Richard in his musical instrument repair business,... Read more
The French Promise (Fiona McIntosh, Michael Joseph)
Released April 2013
The French Promise continues the World War II story of Luc and Lisette, the protagonists of McIntosh’s The Lavender Keeper, although it is easily read independently of the first book.... Read more
Me and Rory Macbeath (Richard Beasley, Hachette)
Released May 2013
In his third novel, Richard Beasley tells a ‘rites of passage’ story from the perspective of the child while the adult lurks in the background. The best parts of Me and... Read more
Taking a Chance (Deborah Burrows, Macmillan)
Released May 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of Nell, a journalist in Perth during World War II. Although Nell generally covers ‘women’s business’ for a tabloid paper, one day she is asked... Read more
Black Saturday at Steels Creek (Peter Stanley, Scribe)
Released May 2013
The fires of Black Saturday in 2009 are a significant event in Australia’s history. But, as Peter Stanley writes in some detail in his book, 7 February 2009 sits alongside... Read more
A World of Other People (Steven Carroll, Fourth Estate)
Released April 2013
Steven Carroll is a long-term admirer of T S Eliot and has already won praise for his adaption of Eliot’s poem ‘Burnt Norton’ in an earlier novel, The Lost Life.... Read more
Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir (Kristina Olsson, UQP)
Released April 2013
In 1950 in far north Queensland, a pregnant 19-year-old boards a train with her baby boy, only to have her child wrenched away by her violent husband. Years later, the... Read more
The Good Life: What Makes a Life Worth Living (Hugh Mackay, Pan Macmillan)
Released April 2013
This is not a book about ‘how to feel good, how to find happiness or how to reap some reward for your goodness’. Hugh Mackay’s message is that while those... Read more
Welcome to Your New Life (Anna Goldsworthy, Black Inc.)
Released April 2013
Having recently read Anna Goldsworthy’s celebrated first memoir Piano Lessons, I jumped at the chance to review her second, given how much her honest authorial voice and eloquent turn of... Read more
The Secret Lives of Men (Georgia Blain, Scribe)
Released April 2013
Many adjectives have been used to describe Georgia Blain’s work, including evocative, powerful, atmospheric, haunting, rich, thought-provoking, skilful, uncompromising and finely detailed—all of which apply to this collection of short... Read more
Twitcher (Cherise Saywell, Vintage)
Released March 2013
Twitcher is Cherise Saywell’s second novel after her impressive debut, Desert Fish. Sixteen-year-old Kenno lives with his parents and sister in a popular coastal town in Scotland. Real estate is... Read more
Through a Sparkling Glass (Andrea Frost, Hardie Grant)
Released April 2013
This is a bubbly little book that, on the first sip, surprises with its light and airy style, but after a second or third taste turns into something far more... Read more
I’ve an Uncle Ivan (Ban Sanders, Thames & Hudson)
Released April 2013
This book introduces each member of a large family as, one by one, they make their way towards the town square. As the readers progresses through the story they encounter... Read more
