ANNA GEORGE The Lone Child. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
The Lone Child focusses on character development, imbued with sadness, longing, regret and loss. Following on from her stunning debut novel, What Came Before, Anna George has created another claustrophobic and compelling character study of somebody...
EMMA VISKIC And Fire Came Down. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Emma Viskic explores difference, and its consequences, in this sequel to Resurrection Bay. Even before Viskic’s debut novel Resurrection Bay won the 2016 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction and an unprecedented three Davitt Awards, readers...
HELEN HAENKE Helen Haenke at Rockton: A creative life. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
The life of Helen Haenke highlights the vitality and value of regional arts and their crucial interconnections with place. Who was Helen Haenke? Where is Rockton? This non-fiction publication from the University of Queensland Press (edited by Joanne...
NIKE SULWAY Dying in the First Person. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
Nike Sulway’s new novel is a powerful and extraordinarily beautiful story of family, love and sacrifice. In Dying in the First Person Nike Sulway has created a world we enter slowly, uncovering the past and its hurts in small steps. It draws the reader...
ELIZABETH TAN Rubik. Reviewed by Justine Hyde
Rubik is a wonderful experiment in fiction, exploring a vast landscape within the contained borders of a novel. Experimental fiction can be a risky gamble for the reader, but when it is beautifully executed, as in the case of Elizabeth Tan’s debut, Rubik, the...
Crime Scene: SARAH SCHMIDT See What I Have Done. Reviewed by Justine Hyde
This fictional rendition of a true crime by Sarah Schmidt is full of brilliant and off-kilter imagery that reinforces the unsettling mood of the novel. Reading Sarah Schmidt’s debut novel See What I Have Done is like pressing down on a...
CAROLINE BAUM Only: A singular memoir. Reviewed by Shelley McInnis
Baum’s memoir is replete with examples of emotional deftness of the highest order. I have very much enjoyed Caroline Baum’s published essays, and it is a delight to see two of them appearing as familiar landmarks in this big map of a memoir. One, entitled...
Crime Scene: JAYE FORD Darkest Place. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Darkest Place is Australian thriller writer Jaye Ford’s fifth book of stand-alones involving women under threat who are definitely not victims. In 2011 Jaye Ford released Beyond Fear, telling the story of a girls’ weekend away at an isolated country hideaway....
DEBRA JOPSON Oliver of the Levant. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
Oliver of the Levant is a wise and nuanced coming-of-age story set in troubled times. Like many 15-year-old boys in the late 1960s, Oliver Lawrence has a poster of Jimi Hendrix on his bedroom wall, and he’d rather hang around Bondi Beach than go to school. But unlike...
Rebellious Daughters giveaway
It’s the first day of spring and to celebrate we’re giving away a copy of Rebellious Daughters: True stories from Australia’s finest female writers, edited by Maria Katsonis and Lee Kofman (reviewed today by Shelley McInnes). To go in the draw, just email...
MARIA KATSONIS & LEE KOFMAN (Eds) Rebellious Daughters: True stories from Australia’s finest female writers. Reviewed by Shelley McInnis
The authors in Rebellious Daughters write about family honestly and without clichés. It’s been a while since, in My Mother, Myself, Wellesley College graduate Nancy Friday invited Baby Boomer women to reflect on their first impressions of life and how these...
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