ERIN HORTLE A Catalogue of Love. Reviewed by Annette Hughes
Neika – scientist, surfer, and irresistible protagonist of A Catalogue of Love – attempts to classify emotions in Erin Hortle’s new novel. Neika is a scientist, an ornithologist studying the migration of the shearwater population of her beloved Bruny Island, where she...
KESHE CHOW For No Mortal Creature. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
Australian Keshe Chow’s award-winning debut The Girl With No Reflection became an international bestseller. Her second does not disappoint. In her hidden magical village, Jia Liu hasn’t felt as though she belongs for a long time, ever since it became clear...
NICOLA BARKER TonyInterruptor. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Nicola Barker interrogates the nature of honesty, creativity and improvisation with sharp-eyed humour in her new novel. Nicola Barker is a prize-winning author. Several of her books have been long- or shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, but she is known for...
T KINGFISHER Hemlock and Silver. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
Poison, mirror worlds, a life in danger and a seemingly impossible task – T Kingfisher’s latest fantasy has them all. And a talking cat. Healer Anja isn’t fully comfortable with being called a healer, as her main passion is studying poisons and their antidotes...
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...
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