ROSE TREMAIN Lily: A tale of revenge. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Rose Tremain’s latest novel is both a mystery set in 19th-century London and an indictment of the abuse of children. She dreams of her death. It comes as a cold October dawn is breaking in the London sky. A sack is put over her head. Through the weave of the burlap,...
ELIZABETH STROUT Oh William! Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
The author of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge revisits some familiar faces in her new novel, Oh William! Oh William! follows the same ensemble of characters as Elizabeth Strout’s finely honed novel My Name is Lucy Barton, and the accompanying collection of...
WENDY JAMES A Little Bird. Reviewed by Kim Kelly
The ninth novel from Wendy James is a classic page-turning mystery that is both psychologically complex and authentically Australian. Best known as the ‘queen of domestic noir’, James brings a keen understanding of social and political history to her richly layered...
SOSUKE NATSUKAWA The Cat Who Saved Books. Reviewed by Robin Riedstra
Japanese author Sosuke Natsukawa’s second novel brings together a cat and a bookshop, and contains more than its slim volume suggests. The Cat Who Saved Books is like a TARDIS. It has simple language and is only 224 pages, yet in many ways it is ‘bigger on the...
HILMA WOLITZER Today a woman went mad in the supermarket. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Hilma Wolitzer’s stories capture the extraordinary within the ordinary in this collection that showcases her work from the 1960s to now. A woman went mad in the supermarket … well, haven’t we all felt like that at times, especially if we have had two small...
NICK EARLS Wisdom Tree: Five Novellas. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
This month’s Flashback Friday explores Nick Earl’s entwined Wisdom Tree novellas from 2016: Gotham, Venice, Vancouver, Juneau, and NoHo. The Tolstoy quotation about unhappy families could easily have been the epigraph to every one of the five novellas that...
COLM TOIBIN The Magician. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
Colm Toibin’s tenth novel imagines the life and times of novelist Thomas Mann, whose books were banned by the Nazis in his native Germany. The Magician is a very clever and enjoyable novel based on the life of German author Thomas Mann. Toibin has previously...
MICHELLE DE KRETSER Scary Monsters. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Miles Franklin-winner Michelle de Kretser offers unsettling possibilities and questions to ponder in her latest fiction. Scary Monsters is really two novels in one book. The publishers decided to print each novel so that it starts from the opposite end of the book....
EMILY BITTO Wild Abandon. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Emily Bitto won the Stella Prize in 2015 for her first novel The Strays. Her second, Wild Abandon, was worth the wait. Wild Abandon is a kind of coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of two very different sides of America (the book itself is divided into two...
JENNIFER MILLS The Airways. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
The Airways is Jennifer Mills’ third novel and ranges from Sydney to Beijing as it explores themes of infection and the banality of violence. Someone recently tweeted that if we gave male violence the same attention as Covid, men would have been under curfew for...
TONI JORDAN The Fragments. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
Welcome to Flashback Fridays! This is a new monthly feature where we review books we overlooked when they first appeared. This week, Michelle McLaren discusses Toni Jordan’s 2018 novel of intrigue and literary obsession, The Fragments. All Has an End was Inga...
Recent Posts
MARIANA ENRIQUEZ Somebody is Walking on Your Grave. Reviewed by Ann Skea11 November 2025No casual tombstone tourist, Mariana Enriquez details her fascination with [ … ]
DAVID PRICE The Shameful Isles. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck6 November 2025David Price’s history of Western Australia’s lock hospitals and the [ … ]
BRIAN STODDART Playing the Game: How cricket made Barbados. Reviewed by Bernard Whimpress4 November 2025Brian Stoddart’s multi-faceted account of a small island’s cricket history is a [ … ]
ANDREW PIPPOS The Transformations. Reviewed by Linda Godfrey30 October 2025The second novel from Andrew Pippos draws inspiration from the epics of ancient [ … ]