BRADLEY TREVOR GREIVE and CAROLINE LANER BREURE Broken Girl. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
This memoir of a young woman’s recovery from a traumatic brain injury becomes an unputdownable detective story. Broken Girl, Caroline Laner Breure’s memoir written with Bradley Trevor Greive, opens with light, breezy snapshots of a young woman ready to burst forth...
JOHN WISWELL Someone You Can Build a Nest In. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
John Wiswell gives an outsider’s view of human behaviour in this novel of a shape-shifting monster told with violence and dark humour. John Wiswell must be in the running for title of the year for his debut fantasy novel Someone You Can Build a Nest In. The title not...
2024 Sydney Writers Festival book giveaway!
There’s a ton of great writers appearing at this year’s Sydney Writers Festival, which opens next week, and we have a very special book pack to give away. To go into the draw to win all FIVE titles by writers appearing at the festival, simply email...
CAMERON STEWART Why Do Horses Run? Reviewed by Ann Skea
The protagonist of Cameron Stewart’s novel finds solace in solitude as he walks through Australia, encountering both kindness and cruelty. NOW I EAT ROADKILL. When I’m desperate for food I drag dead animals off the road. Rabbit, kangaroos, goannas – as long as the...
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...
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