STACEY HALLS The Familiars. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley.
Stacey Halls plunges into the witch craze of 17th-century England in her new novel. In Lancashire, England, it’s 1612. Fleetwood Shuttleworth, Mistress of Gawthorpe, is 17 years old and pregnant for the fourth time after three dreadful miscarriages. Without an heir...
Marvellous Monday Giveaway
This week’s giveaway features two works of historical fiction: Leah Kaminsky’s The Hollow Bones and Matthew Hooton’s Typhoon Kingdom. To go in the draw to win both books, simply email editors@newtownreviewofbooks.com.au by midnight Monday 24...
BELINDA CASTLES Bluebottle. Reviewed by Linda Funnell
Belinda Castles navigates the dark undercurrents of a family in her new novel. Bluebottles are common on Australian beaches, their attractive hue concealing the painful poison within. Belinda Castles’ new novel (she previously won the Vogel for The River Baptists and...
BEHROUZ BOOCHANI No Friend But The Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison. Reviewed by Suzanne Marks
This award-winning memoir is a cry from the heart, revealing, through poetry and prose, the brutality of indefinite detention on Manus Island. Behrouz Boochani is a Kurdish/Iranian asylum seeker who sought to come to Australia on a leaky, unseaworthy boat. He was...
Marvellous Monday Giveaway
This week’s giveaway features two powerful works of non-fiction: Chloe Hooper’s investigation of the man responsible for the Black Saturday bushfires, The Arsonist, and the story of Indigenous boxer and Commonwealth champion Wally...
LEAH KAMINSKY The Hollow Bones. Reviewed by Tracy Sorensen
Leah Kaminsky’s second novel explores science, Nazi ideology, and the dangerous seduction of going with the flow. The bones in Leah Kaminsky’s new novel, The Hollow Bones are bird bones: hollow and light, made for flying. The image of birds in flight and birds...
HANYA YANAGIHARA The People in the Trees. Reviewed by James McKenzie Watson
Captivating, confronting and challenging, The People in the Trees is the 2013 debut novel by Hanya Yanagihara, who would go on to explode onto the international literary scene with her Man Booker shortlisted epic A Little Life in 2015. Part literary fiction, part dark...
Marvellous Monday Giveaway
Today Australia celebrates the birthday of a very famous Englishwoman, so this week’s giveaway features books by two women authors from the UK: Elizabeth Macneal’s debut novel The Doll Factory and Bev Thomas’s thriller A Good Enough Mother. To...
ALI SMITH Spring. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
Ali Smith’s latest novel is erudite, political, and full of riches. This is the third novel in Ali Smith’s sequence based on the seasons: Autumn, Winter, and now Spring. It is much darker than the first two novels, and although one could perhaps assume...
TIM CLARE The Ice House. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Tim Clare’s second novel follows in the footsteps of other modern British fantasists like China Miéville and Jeff Vandermeer. In 2015 Tim Clare released his debut fantasy The Honours. That book felt like a reinvigoration of classic British fantasy. Set in the...
Marvellous Monday Giveaway
This week week our giveaway features two remarkable convict women: Meg Keneally’s new novel Fled, based on the life of Mary Bryant, and Jessica North’s biography Esther, about the First Fleet girl who became First Lady of the colony. To go in...
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