ANDREW PIPPOS The Transformations. Reviewed by Linda Godfrey
The second novel from Andrew Pippos draws inspiration from the epics of ancient Greece as its characters navigate a fraught world. Early in the story, George Desoulis reveals that his family came to Australia from Ithaka, Greece, and that their surname, Desoulis, is a...
JOHN BANVILLE Venetian Vespers. Reviewed by Naomi Manuell
Set in Venice in 1899, John Banville’s new novel blends crime and the gothic as it skewers literary pretension. From 2006 to around 2020, Irish novelist John Banville began publishing crime fiction under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. The Man Booker Prize winner (and...
GARRY DISHER Mischance Creek. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Senior Constable Paul Hirschhausen and his small community are once again put to the test in the fifth of this outstanding rural noir series. Paul Hirsch is out and about on his huge, drought-ridden South Australian beat doing firearms audits. Checking that guns are...
HEATHER ROSE A Great Act of Love. Reviewed by Ann Skea
The bestselling author of The Museum of Modern Love turns to historical fiction in her new novel set in convict-era Van Dieman’s Land. Do not be fooled by the cover of this book. In spite of the pretty young woman gazing at you through a tangle of ribbons and the...
MATTHEW HOOTON Everything Lost, Everything Found. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Longlisted for the 2025 ARA Historical Novel Prize, Matthew Hooton’s novel traces memories of Henry Ford’s experimental settlement in Brazil. I know my grandson, Nicholas, thinks of my personal history as an exaggeration or tall tale. And why shouldn’t he? He cannot...
IAN McEWAN What We Can Know. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
How will the future judge us? Ian McEwan’s new novel looks back at our world from the perspective of 2119. In a year that has already delivered some fascinating climate fiction, one of England’s best, Ian McEwan, enters the fray. What We Can Know is a book about a...
KA LINDE The Robin on the Oak Throne. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
KA Linde continues her Oak and Holly fantasy series with plenty of intrigue, engaging characters – and a content warning. As another orphan in the aftermath of the war between monsters and humans, Kierse has never had time to worry about being unable to remember her...
RF KUANG Katabasis. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
The bestselling author of Yellowface returns to dark fantasy with her new novel set amid university life – and Hell. RF Kuang burst into the global literary scene with her satirical work Yellowface. But for some she was already there, following a debut trilogy of...
LAURA ELVERY Nightingale. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Award-winning short story writer Laura Elvery’s first novel delivers a vivid portrait of Florence Nightingale and the horrors of war. Bodies fall apart. Things come to an end. Everyone wants to make me comfortable, I know that. How many times have I murmured...
RHETT DAVIS Arborescence. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
The new novel from the award-winning author of Hovering asks big questions about the environment, AI, and what it means to be human. Rhett Davis burst onto the Australian literary scene in 2020 with the Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Award for his book...
JENNIFER TREVELYAN A Beautiful Family. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Jennifer Trevelyan’s debut novel is both a coming of age story and a mystery full of secrets set within a 1980s New Zealand beach holiday. All sorts of things might have happened to the girl’s body after it had drowned, Kahu said. It might have been carried out to...
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