TODD LEY Smashed: Tennis prodigies, parents, and parasites. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck
Todd Ley’s account of his time as a tennis prodigy may be one of the most important books you will ever read on tennis. Todd Ley was born into a dysfunctional family. His father, who he refers to as ‘Mad Max’, was ‘a traumatised yet charismatic character,...
BENJAMIN STEVENSON Everyone This Christmas Has A Secret. Reviewed by Naomi Manuell
The author of Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone returns with another witty homage to the Golden Age of crime fiction. There’s a whiff of unseriousness around some whodunnits. Many readers still think of the form as stuck in detective fiction’s Golden Age with...
BRYAN BROWN The Drowning. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Actor and Australian icon Bryan Brown brings his laconic style to his first full-length crime novel. The Drowning is set on the northern beaches of New South Wales in a small town that is mostly occupied by surfers, retirees, outsiders and backpackers. But with the...
TIM FLANNERY and EMMA FLANNERY Big Meg. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
From the ancient megalodon to Jaws, Big Meg feeds our fascination with huge and dangerous marine creatures. I was fascinated by the prospect of Big Meg: The story of the largest and most mysterious predator that ever lived, but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I...
JOHN DALE The Faculty. Reviewed by Airlie Lawson
This insider’s satire of university life is no advertisement for an academic career. The premise of John Dale’s new novel is simple, age-old even: ambitious young thing gets dream job – but discovers that, in reality, it’s closer to a nightmare. The book opens with a...
SHELLEY PARKER-CHAN She Who Became the Sun. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
Australian Shelley Parker-Chan’s historical fantasy has won a Hugo Award for Best New Writer and two British Fantasy Awards. Shelley Parker Chan’s debut novel reimagines the rise to power of the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty in fourteenth-century China. During the...
SHAUN PRESCOTT Bon and Lesley. Reviewed by Paul Anderson
Sean Prescott’s second novel recounts an escape to the country – or does it? ‘No Australian under 50 has seen a time like this in their adult lives,’ declared a recent op-ed on Black Swan events. That’s one possible way into this intense, Jungian novel. Bon and...
ROBERT HORNE: interviewed by Ben Ford Smith
Ben Ford Smith talks to the author of The Glass Harpoon about being longlisted for this year’s ARA Historical Novel Prize and South Australia’s history. After its inaugural year in 2020, the ARA Historical Novel Prize is already Australasia’s richest genre...
CHARLOTTE McCONAGHY Once There Were Wolves. Reviewed by Ann Skea.
Charlotte McConaghy follows up her international bestseller The Last Migration with a story of wolves and the Scottish Highlands. When I was eight, Dad cut me open from throat to stomach. Such a dramatic first line promises a dramatic story and Once There Were Wolves...
ROBERT GOTT The Orchard Murders. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
The fourth book in Robert Gott’s ‘Murders’ series frees its cast from the constraints of the newly formed Homicide Squad and plunges them straight into a baffling case that threatens many of their number. Readers who are new to this series might be fine starting...
MICHAEL MOHAMMED AHMAD The Other Half of You. Reviewed by Paul Anderson
Michael Mohammed Ahmad completes an enthralling trilogy of autofiction with The Other Half of You, his third novel. These three books portray the young life of Bani Adam, Ahmad’s alter ego, who is also a Muslim Arab-Australian writer from Western Sydney. Bani is in...
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