LEAH KAMINSKY Doll’s Eye. Reviewed by Kim Kelly
Part literary romance, part cultural odyssey, Doll’s Eye is a lively challenge to the tropes of contemporary Australian Holocaust fiction. Author, physician, Jew, lover of science, nature and language: these bright strands of Leah Kaminsky’s real-life identity...
KIRSTY JAGGER Roseghetto. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Kirsty Jagger’s debut novel is a confronting story about growing up in the worst of circumstances, and how violence and poverty can happen to anyone. Potential readers will need to take into account the author’s note at the front of this novel: This book is...
LUKE RUTLEDGE A Man and His Pride. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
Luke Rutledge’s debut novel is both a social comedy and a moving story of coming out. Luke Rutledge has written a delightful comedy of manners set against the backdrop of the 2017 marriage equality plebiscite. It opens at a cracking pace, introducing us to 26-year-old...
MEGAN ROGERS The Heart is a Star. Reviewed by Emma Foster
Debut novelist Megan Rogers has chosen the moody west coast of Tasmania as the backdrop for this dark family drama. Just as the atmosphere on the Apple Isle can often be bleak and unpredictable (characteristics that have lent themselves so well to the rise of the...
CATHERINE THERESE Things She Would Have Said Herself. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
Catherine Therese follows up her memoir The Weight of Silence with a novel featuring an abrasive yet sympathetic protagonist. My mother thought Catch-22 was one of the funniest books ever written. My dad thought it one of the saddest. Things She Would Have Said...
CARMEL BIRD Love Letter to Lola: extract
Carmel Bird gives voice to the extinct, the endangered and the overlooked in her new collection of stories. Carmel Bird is one of Australia’s most gifted and original writers, and we’re delighted to bring you the title story from her latest collection, Love Letter to...
ROBERT GOTT Naked Ambition. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
If you’ve ever wondered what a crime novel written by Noel Coward might be like, Naked Ambition could provide some clues. Fans of Robert Gott’s earlier William Power series, or his newspaper cartoon The Adventures of Naked Man, will not be all that...
SHIRLEY HAZZARD The Transit of Venus. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey
The recent release of Brigitta Olubas’ biography of Shirley Hazzard has prompted Catherine Pardey to reflect on Hazzard’s 1980 novel The Transit of Venus. After re-reading The Transit of Venus it is always surprising to re-remember it was published in 1980, as it...
JAMES MCKENZIE WATSON Denizen. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith
James McKenzie Watson’s thriller-like debut brings coherence to a life breaking apart. James McKenzie Watson’s first novel Denizen is partly a thriller and partly a depiction of generational abuse and its consequences, drawing on the author’s upbringing in rural...
KATE MORTON Homecoming. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Set in Sydney and the Adelaide Hills, Kate Morton’s new novel unwinds a mystery stretching across generations. Anyone who has read Kate Morton’s earlier novels will know that she excels at setting the scene, creating interesting and likeable characters, leading...
KYLIE NEEDHAM Girl in a Pink Dress. Reviewed by Annette Hughes
Kylie Needham’s debut novel contemplates what happens when a muse is also an artist. The ‘girl in a pink dress’ is Frances, a young art student who charms her tutor (twice her age) and becomes his muse. The trope of the older male artist and the younger female...
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