TRENT DALTON Boy Swallows Universe. Reviewed by Chris Maher
Boy Swallows Universe is a first novel rich in adventure, description and plot. Mark Twain famously said that truth is stranger than fiction, and the parts of Boy Swallows Universe that draw on Trent Dalton’s actual boyhood are as intriguing as the fictional plot...
TIM WINTON The Shepherd’s Hut. Reviewed By Tom Patterson
The Shepherd‘s Hut is more than a novel: it has the shape and pattern of a very Australian, very modern, epic. Tim Winton can be hard on his characters. He drowned the Lambs’ favourite son, then only half gave him back. He sent Scully on a chase through Europe...
ALI SMITH Winter. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
Time and its ramifications of past and present and even a small look at the future are perhaps the main themes of Winter, with plenty of fun, wordplay and space in between. Ali Smith has planned a suite of novels based on the seasons. The first of these, Autumn,...
RICHARD HOLT What You Might Find. Reviewed by Alexander Wells
Richard Holt explores the possibilities of microfiction with great inventiveness and style. The short short stories collected in Richard Holt’s startling first book, What You Might Find, are precisely constructed and darkly surprising. With impressive economy and...
JENNY ACKLAND Little Gods. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
Ackland crafts perfect scenes in Little Gods – a novel about the things that fade away: childhood, memories and ghosts. Olive Lovelock is 12 years old and fearless. She tells people that the old binoculars she wears around her neck all the time are...
ELEANOR LIMPRECHT The Passengers. Reviewed by Suzanne Marks
Eleanor Limprecht’s new novel explores themes of love, resilience, and courage – the courage to make critical life changes and to endure the loss of what must be left behind. In The Passengers, Limprecht cleverly mixes fictitious elements with real events and the...
CATHERINE MCKINNON Storyland. Reviewed by Tracy Sorensen
Storyland carries us into new imaginative places – past, present and future. ‘To dare is to do!’ The 15-year-old cabin boy repeats this mantra when terror, like a giant black wave, threatens to overwhelm him. The boy is William Martin, and he’s aboard a tiny...
HEATHER MORRIS The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Reviewed by Clare O’Brien
The Tattooist of Auschwitz gives a harrowing insight into how a person might survive and how love persists in the darkest of places. Beyond the yard, disappearing into the darkness, is a further compound. The tops of the fences are lined with razor wire. Up in...
JESS KIDD The Hoarder. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
The Hoarder is a thoroughly satisfying mystery story with its vibrant characterisation and richly descriptive prose. Maud Drennan is a care worker who has been sent to manage Cathal Flood, an elderly giant of a man who lives in a decaying and cluttered mansion called...KIRSTY MANNING The Jade Lily. Reviewed by Kim Kelly
Through the lens of friendship and romance The Jade Lily traces the way war smashes and transforms identity and truth. Sometimes the secrets we keep are gifts of love, and it’s this kind of refreshingly unvarnished love that sits at the heart of Kirsty Manning’s...
ROGER AVERILL Relatively Famous. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
A playful real-but-fake fictional world is conjured in Relatively Famous. The title of Roger Averill’s new novel establishes the theme and slightly arch tone that underlie this intriguing metafictional fiction. Narrator Michael Madigan is the son of famous...
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