by NRB | 21 Nov 2023 | Fiction |
Exploitative work and striving for a visa: Vidya Madabushi’s novel highlights the plight of international students in Australia. Thirty-six-year-old Malli lives in a home for the elderly in Bangalore. Young and fit, unlike the other residents, her only ailment is her...
by NRB | 16 Nov 2023 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
Actor and Australian icon Bryan Brown brings his laconic style to his first full-length crime novel. The Drowning is set on the northern beaches of New South Wales in a small town that is mostly occupied by surfers, retirees, outsiders and backpackers. But with the...
by NRB | 14 Nov 2023 | Fiction |
Jessica Dettmann’s third novel reinvents a classic tale of romantic complications to enjoyable effect. Jessica Dettmann’s Without Further Ado is based an old story – about 400 years old. It was 1600 or thereabouts when Shakespeare is thought to have written Much Ado...
by NRB | 9 Nov 2023 | Fiction |
Encompassing grief, trauma and recovery, Nadine J Cohen’s debut novel is also very funny, navigating its dark themes with wit and compassion. ‘Immersed in water as the sun announces its arrival, I feel weightless. I feel free. It’s how I imagine other people feel all...
by NRB | 7 Nov 2023 | Fiction |
Best known for her Practical Magic series, Alice Hoffman delivers a time-travelling homage to the power of books in The Invisible Hour. This novel charts the lives of a mother and daughter and their search for independence and control over their lives. Ivy Jacob grows...
by NRB | 2 Nov 2023 | Non-fiction |
David Marr’s account of his ancestors’ involvement with the Native Police and the murder of Aboriginal people is distressing and important. Several years ago, one of David Marr’s older relatives informed him that his great-great-grandfather Reginald...
by NRB | 31 Oct 2023 | Fiction, SFF |
Shelley Parker-Chan’s award-winning tale of an alternate ancient China continues in He Who Drowned the World. ‘… the most dangerous person in a game is the one nobody knows is playing.’ Dive back into the fascinatingly complex alternate ancient China of Shelley...
by NRB | 26 Oct 2023 | Fiction |
Winner of the 2022 Dorothy Hewett Award, Brendan Ritchie’s third novel is set in a dystopian Western Australia, the landscape pummelled by meteor showers. Elora closed her eyes and waited for the flashes of light to dissolve. It took longer these days. Hours...
by NRB | 24 Oct 2023 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
A finalist in the Ngaio Awards for Best First Crime Novel, Paper Cage is the story of a divided community and a string of missing children. There’s not much that happens in Masterton that Lo Henry doesn’t know about. One of two Pākehā sisters who married...
by NRB | 19 Oct 2023 | Fiction |
Sebastian Faulks’ latest novel explores the consequences of amoral genetic research in a not-too-distant future. Alaric teaches disinterested children history in an English comprehensive school. … he enjoyed giving them an idea that the world had not always been as it...
by NRB | 17 Oct 2023 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
Fiona Sussman’s fifth novel pieces together a suspicious death, a fatal illness and erratic behaviour within a group of lifelong friends. Carmen Andino, Tibbie Lamb and Tibbie’s husband Austin have been friends since school. Austin and Tibbie got together, and...
by NRB | 12 Oct 2023 | Fiction, SFF |
TJ Klune’s werewolves challenge gender roles and showcase love and understanding among the bloodletting. ‘… even one such as you cannot live on rage alone.’ In Wolfsong, the first of TJ Klune’s Green Creek series, Oxnard’s father walks out one day,...
JUNE WRIGHT Mother Paul series. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm6 December 2024June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone [ … ]
ANDREW O’HAGAN Caledonian Road. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey5 December 2024This new novel from the author of Mayflies is set in London, but Glasgow is [ … ]
IAIN RYAN The Dream. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith3 December 2024Iain Ryan’s latest novel continues his fascination with 1980s Queensland and [ … ]
MARINA YUSZCZUK Thirst. Reviewed by Ann Skea28 November 2024Argentinian writer Marina Yuszczuk puts her twist on the vampire novel in [ … ]