by NRB | 4 Apr 2024 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
Donna M Cameron’s second novel is both a fast-paced tale of a whistleblower on the run, and a paean to the beauty of the natural world. The instant he ruins his life a vision of his mother explodes in his head. He can’t see her face, yet he knows she is smiling....
by NRB | 26 Mar 2024 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
In Sulari Gentill’s new novel, aspiring writer Theo and her brother Gus become embroiled in increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories. The Mystery Writer is the latest book by the prolific and always intriguing Australian author Sulari Gentill. Set in the USA, as her...
by NRB | 20 Mar 2024 | Fiction |
Through the story of Matilda, Robyn Bishop’s novel reveals the constrained lives of women in rural New South Wales in the late 1800s. It is July 1892 and Matilda is just old enough to help Clara out of her cot, change her nappy and dress her, but not old enough to...
by NRB | 13 Mar 2024 | Fiction |
Tracy Ryan’s latest novel evokes the social divisions of sixteenth-century France and the stories of two independent-minded women. In The Queen’s Apprenticeship, Tracy Ryan tells the stories of two women. One, Jehane/Josse, the daughter of a journeyman printer who...
by NRB | 7 Mar 2024 | Fiction |
Susan McCreery’s novel recounts the lives of the residents of a block of flats in 1990s Bondi and the complexities of love. A few short sentences and a scene is set, a mood caught, a character revealed: all this is beautifully done. Then short passages are linked...
by NRB | 15 Feb 2024 | Fiction, SFF |
The conclusion to Jo Riccioni’s high fantasy series The Branded Season brings Nara and her sister Osha to the Shadow City of Reis. This exciting sequel to The Branded concludes a thought-provoking and fast-paced story about two sisters finding their place in a harsh,...
by NRB | 25 Jan 2024 | Fiction |
Jennifer Mackenzie Dunbar’s new novel is inspired by the real-life discovery of a hoard of priceless chess pieces on a remote Scottish island. Directly in front of her, the queen held her hand against her cheek, as if aghast. ‘What have you seen?’ Marianne whispered,...
by NRB | 14 Nov 2023 | Fiction |
Jessica Dettmann’s third novel reinvents a classic tale of romantic complications to enjoyable effect. Jessica Dettmann’s Without Further Ado is based an old story – about 400 years old. It was 1600 or thereabouts when Shakespeare is thought to have written Much Ado...
by NRB | 9 Nov 2023 | Fiction |
Encompassing grief, trauma and recovery, Nadine J Cohen’s debut novel is also very funny, navigating its dark themes with wit and compassion. ‘Immersed in water as the sun announces its arrival, I feel weightless. I feel free. It’s how I imagine other people feel all...
by NRB | 3 Oct 2023 | Fiction |
Briohny Doyle’s third novel explores the impact of multiple losses in a single life, exacerbated by the effects of the pandemic. ‘What should survive and how? And how do you know when survival has transpired?’ This is the central question posed in Why We Are Here, the...
by NRB | 25 Jul 2023 | Fiction |
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...
by NRB | 27 Jun 2023 | Fiction |
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...
JUNE WRIGHT Mother Paul series. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm6 December 2024June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone [ … ]
ANDREW O’HAGAN Caledonian Road. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey5 December 2024This new novel from the author of Mayflies is set in London, but Glasgow is [ … ]
IAIN RYAN The Dream. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith3 December 2024Iain Ryan’s latest novel continues his fascination with 1980s Queensland and [ … ]
MARINA YUSZCZUK Thirst. Reviewed by Ann Skea28 November 2024Argentinian writer Marina Yuszczuk puts her twist on the vampire novel in [ … ]