Interview with Amy Espeseth on ‘Sufficient Grace’ (Scribe)
Amy Espeseth's novel Sufficient Grace (Scribe, September) is a story of lost innocence and the unfailing bond between two young women. Read the review here. Espeseth spoke to reviewer Rita Yazdani. Reading Sufficient Grace, I kept...
Get Well Soon! My (Un)Brilliant Career as a Nurse (Kristy Chambers, UQP)
*Nonfiction Television audiences have been inundated with programs that attempt to depict the medical profession. Brisbane nurse Kristy Chambers’ memoir Get Well Soon! embodies the reason for their popularity: our tendency...
Interview with Toni Jordan on ‘Nine Days’
With two romantic comedies under her belt, Toni Jordan tackles the family saga in her latest book Nine Days (Text, September). She spoke to reviewer Chris Harrington. The nine days...
The Swarm (Andy Kissane, Puncher & Wattmann)
The characters who inhabit Andy Kissane’s engaging short stories are recognisably Australian and contemporary, as are the situations they find themselves in. A musician rediscovers music after a bereavement in...
Interview with Sue Woolfe on ‘The Oldest Song in the World’
In her latest novel, Sue Woolfe depicts life in an outback Aboriginal community through the eyes of white linguistics student Kate. Reviewer Clive Tilsley gave it five stars, describing it...
To the Highlands (Jon Doust, Fremantle Press)
What is a man and how does a boy become one? Jack Muir was searching for the answers to these questions in Boy on a Wire, the first book in...
Sufficient Grace (Amy Espeseth, Scribe)
Raised in a fundamentalist family of Pentecostals, where sin is an ever-prevalent danger, 13-year-old Ruth must reconcile her faith with reality as dark family secrets unravel over the course of...
The Oldest Song in the World (Sue Woolfe, Fourth Estate)
The Oldest Song in the World is quite an incredible book. The story, with its mix of themes, is full of tension and interest. Kate is sent to a town...
Nine Days (Toni Jordan, Text)
We first meet the Westaway family through the character of young Kip, brother to Francis and Connie, son to a grieving mother Jean and a recently deceased father. It is...
The Midnight Promise: A Detective’s Story in Ten Cases (Zane Lovitt, Text)
The Midnight Promise crashes straight into Temple, Corris and Chandler territory—just like the blurb promises. It involves a Melbourne PI, interlinked stories (if this worries you, just consider them TV...
Midnight Empire (Andrew Croome, A&U)
Andrew Croome’s debut novel, Document Z, looked at the world of Australian diplomats during the Cold War using the prism of the Petrov case. His second novel, Midnight Empire, is...
Mazin Grace (Dylan Coleman, UQP)
Winner of the 2011 David Unaipon Award for Indigenous Writing, this is a remarkable novel. Based on the author’s mother’s recollections of growing up on a South Australian Lutheran Mission...
Black Mountain (Venero Armanno, UQP)
This intriguing novel takes you from a small coastal Queensland town to the sulphur minefields of Sicily. There are elements of Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind and...
Fishing for Tigers (Emily Maguire, Picador)
Fishing for Tigers is Emily Maguire’s fourth novel, and a departure from the darkness of the most recent Smoke in the Room. Maguire’s exploration of unconventional relationships—her critically acclaimed first...
Interview with Dylan Coleman on ‘Mazin Grace’
Winner of the David Unaipon Award for Indigenous Writing, Dylan Coleman’s novel is ‘in turn heart-wrenching, amusing, tragic and resilient’, writes reviewer Max Oliver. He spoke to the author. This...
Interview with Emily Maguire on ‘Fishing for Tigers’
Emily Maguire’s latest novel explores the amorality of an expat community in Hanoi, and 35-year-old Mischa’s affair with an idealistic younger man. Maguire spoke to Portia Lindsay. You have previously...
Dad’s the word: Upcoming father’s day titles
Spare dads the socks and ties this year with a selection of well-chosen Father’s Day titles. Kate Blackwood rounds up some of the best. Sports and music For sports-mad dads...
Interview with Zane Lovitt on ‘The Midnight Promise’
‘The Midnight Promise crashes straight into Temple, Corris and Chandler territory,’ writes reviewer Catherine Schulz. She spoke to author Zane Lovitt. The Midnight Promise was plucked from the slushpile by...
Thirst (L A Larkin, Pier 9)
L A Larkin’s debut The Genesis Flaw was a fabulous eco-thriller with tight storytelling that stretched—but didn’t break—credibility, so readers will come to her second novel with high expectations. Thirst...
Hannah & Emil (Belinda Castles, A&U)
Hannah & Emil is the third novel from Vogel Literary Award winner Belinda Castles, and is inspired by the events of her grandparents’ lives. In a similar style to Anna...