TC BOYLE Outside Looking In. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
1960s LSD guru Timothy Leary famously said ‘turn on, tune in, drop out’; in this new novel TC Boyle explores what that meant for those who followed him. TC Boyle is one of the great chroniclers of America and Americans through fiction. While many of his...
NGAIO MARSH and STELLA DUFFY Money in the Morgue: The new Inspector Alleyn mystery. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
It’s 84 years since Dame Ngaio Marsh published the first Roderick Alleyn novel. Now he’s back, in a crime novel outlined by Marsh during the Second World War and completed by Stella Duffy in 2018. Dame Ngaio Marsh was a New Zealand crime writer and theatre...
WENDY ELLIOTT Grit and Grace in a World Gone Mad: Humanitarianism in Talas, Turkey, 1908–1923. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
The early 20th century saw terrible suffering as the Ottoman Empire came to an end; these accounts of American and Canadian relief workers bear witness to events in Turkey during this period, including the Armenian genocide. The Young Turk Revolution succeeded...
MAX PORTER Lanny. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers, returns with a new novel, Lanny, that taps into an ageless flow of folklore, feelings, fears and superstitions. Lanny is a wonderfully imaginative, innovative and unusual book and it is hard to write a...
MICHELLE ARROW The Seventies: The personal, the political and the making of modern Australia. Reviewed by Kathy Gollan
The 1970s in Australia was more than flared jeans and satin pantsuits: in this overview Michelle Arrow charts the decade’s transformation of the social and political landscape. The seventies was a decade of upheavals in political, economic and industrial life....
MARY-ROSE MACCOLL The True Story of Maddie Bright. Reviewed by Kim Kelly
The True Story of Maddie Bright captures the challenges of the writing life with wit and romance. Intriguing from the opening scenes, which play out in the grim between-wars London of 1921 and a possum-ridden Brisbane house 60 years on, Mary-Rose MacColl’s sixth and...
LEE GOLDBERG Killer Thriller. Reviewed by Lou Mentor
This second book in Ian Ludlow action series by Lee Goldberg takes us deep into a global conspiracy, never skipping any opportunity for cheap kills, expensive thrills and slapstick laughs along the way. Following on from True Fiction, Ian Ludlow once again stars as...
JESSICA NORTH Esther. Reviewed by Ann Skea
This biography recounts how Esther went from being convicted in London’s Old Bailey and transported to Botany Bay with the First Fleet, to becoming First Lady of the colony. Do not be misled, as I was, by the cover of this book, which shows a young...
MELISSA FERGUSON The Shining Wall. Reviewed by Dasha Maiorova
In Melissa Ferguson’s imaginative and original debut, Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal clones inhabit a bleak and desperate dystopia. The Shining Wall questions the nature of humanity and compassion in a world bereft of both. The depiction of an unhappy future, societal...
NRB’s 7th birthday biggest-ever giveaway #5
Here’s our final bundle of six terrific books to be won in the last special 7th birthday giveaway. We’re thrilled to be seven, and we’re hugely grateful to all our readers, contributors and supporters who have made it possible. If you enjoy NRB,...
DERVLA MCTIERNAN The Scholar. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
This second novel in the DS Cormac O’Reilly series cements Irish-born, Australian-resident Dervla McTiernan as one of the up and coming stars of crime fiction in both countries. DS Cormac O’Reilly of the Garda was introduced to readers in the highly...
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