GILLIAN McALLISTER Wrong Place, Wrong Time. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
British crime writer Gillian McAllister’s new novel explores time travel as crime prevention. Time loops are everywhere these days. Groundhog Day might have popularised them (and in doing so entered the popular vernacular) but the narrative conceit has now gone...
LOUISE ERDRICH The Night Watchman. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey
A look back at the novel that won Louise Erdrich, most recently author of The Sentence, the Pulitzer Prize. Towards the end of Louise Erdrich’s excellent novel The Night Watchman are the words ‘Ambe bi-izhaan omaa askiing miinawa.’ Spoken by a...
JONATHAN BAZZI Fever. Reviewed by Ivan Crozier
Jonathan Bazzi’s autofiction gives an insight into living with HIV today. Jonathan Bazzi came home from their philosophy class one lunchtime not feeling quite right. A fever came over them ‘and never left’. The result is Fever, an important contribution to...
SULARI GENTILL The Woman In The Library. Reviewed by Emma Foster
Best-known for her Rowland Sinclair detective stories, in this new novel Sulari Gentill puts merriment into a murder mystery. From the moment the action kicks off in The Woman in the Library with a scream piercing the rarefied air of the Boston Public Library, there...
DOUGLAS STUART Young Mungo. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
The author of the Booker-winning Shuggie Bain returns to the streets of Glasgow in his second novel. This is a grim but compelling coming-of-age novel about a teenage boy, set over a year in Glasgow. The book opens as Mungo looks up at his mother’s window as he passes...
SCOTT PEARCE The Rider on the Bridge. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
Scott Pearce’s dreamlike second novel explores life on the edge of society. From the opening moments of The Rider on the Bridge it is clear that we are dealing with a protagonist whose path through life has been somewhat unusual. Kitten, as he later comes to be...
EDWINA PRESTON Bad Art Mother. Reviewed by Annette Hughes
Edwina Preston’s second novel conjures a rich portrait of the artist as a young woman. The protagonist of Bad Art Mother, Veda Gray, finds herself unable to reconcile her duty to motherhood with her duty to her inner life of the mind. Much is bound up in the title....
ISABEL ALLENDE Violeta. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Isabel Allende’s latest novel recounts the life of a remarkable woman. ‘I came into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the year of the scourge.’ Violeta del Valle is now a hundred years old and she is writing her life story for her beloved grandson, Camilo,...
ASHLEY GOLDBERG Abomination. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Ashley Goldberg’s debut novel explores the impact of a scandal in the ultra-Orthodox community. While much global attention has focussed on the failings of the Catholic Church in relation to child sexual abuse, one Australian case has shone a dark light on...
JANE CARO The Mother. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
Jane Caro’s new novel deals frankly with coercive control. Though I knew the gist of the issues raised by The Mother before I began – I’d read the devastating stories of victims of domestic violence, watched the news, and thought I understood the issues – this...
NIGEL FEATHERSTONE My Heart is a Little Wild Thing. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
Nigel Featherstone’s second novel is a story of masculinity and modern Australia. Throwing a clock at his mother in frustration is, for Patrick in Nigel Featherstone’s latest novel, a realisation and a release. Conscious that if his mother hadn’t moved...
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