ANGELA O’KEEFFE Phantom Days. Reviewed by Ann Skea
The new novel from the award-winning author of The Sitter brings a book to life – a book that is sentient, observant, and full of opinions. This is an ordinary story, as all stories are. The story of Isabel and me. I would call it a love story but … love is not quite...
CHRISTINE BALINT A Single Witness. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Christine Balint’s fourth novel takes inspiration from the courage of a teenage girl in a real-life criminal case in 18th-century Italy. ‘It takes seven women to make a single witness.’ Old Venetian Proverb. Anna Maria did not have seven women to turn to for proof,...
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...
Tributes to Jean Bedford
Writer and editor Jean Bedford died after a long illness on 11 December 2025. She leaves a considerable literary legacy. Author of eight novels, including Sister Kate and a trio of Anna Southwood detective novels, two collections of short stories (one written with...
JESSICA DETTMANN Your Friend and Mine. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
The new novel from the author of Without Further Ado and How to be Second Best is a story of friendship and second chances. Margot, you’re my best friend. I will take care of you. You are going to live to be a very old lady in a horrible nursing home where your...
SUZANNE DO The Golden Sister. Reviewed by Linda Godfrey
Set on the Australian coast, Suzanne Do’s first novel is both a murder mystery and a story of grief, family and connection. Lili Berry is in her twenties, and her world is a mess of anxiety, dysfunction and pain. Compounding all her day-to-day problems in the...
KELL WOODS Upon A Starlit Tide. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
Kell Woods blends history, folklore and fairytales in her second novel set on the French coast in eighteenth-century Saint Malo. I know what it is to cry and have no one but the sea there to listen. Lucinde de Leon has always loved the sea. Whenever she can, she...
KERRIE DAVIES Miles Franklin Undercover. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Author Kerrie Davies explores Miles Franklin’s life in the decades after the success of My Brilliant Career. A book is written in solitude and in a crowd, at night, in the early morning, on weekends, and in thoughts and in dreams. So writes Kerrie Davies in her...
FIONA HARDY Unbury the Dead. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Melbourne author Fiona Hardy has broken very different ground with her crime fiction debut Unbury the Dead. Hardy is well-known in crime fiction circles as a Melbourne bookseller, crime fiction reviewer and, more recently, an award-winning author of children’s...
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