EMILY LIGHEZZOLO Life Drawing. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Through the stories of Charlie and Maisie, artist and model, Emily Lighezzolo’s award-winning debut explores body image and its consequences. The publicity for this book describes it as a ‘provocative novel about women’s bodies, sex, autonomy – and the power of the...
KATE MILDENHALL The Hiding Place. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
Kate Mildenhall’s fourth novel takes a group of progressive urbanites into the bush and exposes the conflicts and contradictions among them. This novel moves from the familiar and domestic to a place of unimaginable horror with an ending that will make you gasp. A...
ZEYNAB GAMIELDIEN Learned Behaviours. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
The new novel from the award-winning author of The Scope of Permissibility examines assumptions about class, connection and culpability. A common question on forums like Reddit goes something like this: What moment in your life was so pivotal that everything since has...
TIM AYLIFFE Dark Desert Road. Reviewed by Viv Ronnebeck
Tim Ayliffe’s new thriller Dark Desert Road delivers claustrophic tension as twin sisters navigate extremists in the outback. The prologue to Tim Ayliffe’s Dark Desert Road begins with a woman trapped in a stranger’s suitcase, but the even more arresting detail...
2026 Summer Surprise Giveaway
Surprise! Here’s a very special giveaway of four recent novels. Take your mind off the heat and humidity and enter the draw to win them all. To win all four of these titles, simply email editors@newtownreviewofbooks.com.au with ‘Summer′ in the subject line and...
2025 Readers’ Favourites
With the new year barely begun, take a look back at our top ten reviews of 2025. It’s always fascinating to see which reviews have attracted the most interest from readers. While this 2025 list leans slightly more towards fiction than non-fiction, it does...
LYN DICKENS Salt Upon the Water. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Lyn Dickens’s award-winning debut novel of an independent woman in colonial South Australia explores prejudice, power and identity. Salt Upon the Water is an historical fiction; also, according to the blurb on the back cover, ‘an epic love story’. Both are true, but...
STUART EVERLY-WILSON The Maskeys. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey
Set in a small Australian town dominated by a family of drug dealers, Stuart Everly-Wilson’s new novel is full of memorable characters. Possibly you’ve always been intrigued by the kind of people who feature prominently in Stuart Everly-Wilson’s The Maskeys, but never...
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...
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...
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...
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