MARY GARDEN My Father’s Suitcase. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
Mary Garden’s memoir reveals her physical and mental abuse at the hands of her sister – and an extraordinary case of plagiarism. Mary Garden has written a fascinating and brutally frank memoir of her troubled relationship with her sister and the impact it has had on...
JILL JOHNSON Devil’s Breath. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Devil’s Breath is the first novel in a new crime series built around a neurodivergent professor of botanical toxicology, Eustacia Rose. Eustacia Rose is currently ‘separated’ from her position at a university, disgraced after an incident in her laboratory. She...
SHUBNUM KHAN The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Shubnum Khan’s magical debut set on the east coast of Africa features a djinn, a house, and a story that reaches down the generations. A djinn, according to various encyclopedias, is a creature created by Allah from smokeless flames. It has a subtle body and is...
MAX EASTON Paradise Estate. Reviewed by Paul Anderson
The disparate residents of the sharehouse at the heart of Max Easton’s second novel reveal a microcosm of Australia’s housing crisis. New Year’s Eve 2022 bookends this social novel set in Sydney, in which good nature and resilience are demonstrated in the face of what...
BM CARROLL One of Us is Missing. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
In BM Carroll’s latest crime novel, one family’s celebration turns to disaster as a teenager disappears amid a crowd of concert-goers. The Sullivan family feels like a loving unit, perhaps because Rachel’s brush with breast cancer made them closer, more...
KEVIN JARED HOSEIN Hungry Ghosts. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Kevin Jared Hosein’s debut novel is both a mystery story and a window into the lives of Caribbean indentured labourers and their families. The place is Trinidad, ‘sometime in the 1940s’. Four boys ventured to the river bank to perform a blood oath. Two brothers...
RORY STEWART Politics on the Edge. Reviewed by Tom Patterson
Rory Stewart’s memoir of his ten years as a Conservative MP reveals the instability of UK politics in the decade to 2020. At the age of 36, after stints as the deputy governor of two provinces in Iraq, having founded a successful charity in Afghanistan, written a...
AOIFE CLIFFORD It Takes A Town. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
In Aoife Clifford’s third novel, the death of a local celebrity brings two old schoolmates together to answer some troubling questions. In a small town, news spreads, and in this particular small town – Welcome by name, though not always by nature – glamorous Vanessa...
MIRANDA DARLING Thunderhead. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Miranda Darling deploys all the voices in her protagonist’s head to reveal a fraught relationship in this allusive novella. Winona Dalloway, like Mrs Dalloway in Virginia Woolf’s novel of that name, often finds herself ‘lilting between observing life from the outside...
ROBINNE LEE The Idea of You. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
It’s Flashback Friday: Jessica Stewart reviews Robinne Lee’s 2017 novel of an older woman and a younger man which is getting renewed attention thanks to a film adaptation. Is there a right way to love? In a thousand ways we are told what is acceptable, ethical,...
GARRY DISHER Sanctuary. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
A new crime novel by Garry Disher is always exciting. In Sanctuary, he introduces a new protagonist: a female lone wolf. Meet Grace. She’s a very good thief, having been taught by experts and practising since she was a kid. Specialising in small, high-value...
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