BRIOHNY DOYLE Why We Are Here. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
NIKKI MOTTRAM Crows Nest. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
This latest offering of Australian rural noir contrasts urban and small-town sensibilities from the perspective of a child protection officer. Readers of Crows Nest will not be surprised to learn that author Nikki Mottram has an extensive background in child...
MARYROSE CUSKELLY The Cane. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Maryrose Cuskelly’s novel seems to have taken Arthur Conan Doyle’s maxim to heart: ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ Cuskelly was born in Queensland, where there were several high-profile child...
FIONA McFARLANE The Sun Walks Down. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith
Fiona McFarlane’s story of a lost child reveals a cross-section of colonial Australia. ‘The boy met a god by the hollow tree.’ So begins Fiona McFarlane’s second novel, The Sun Walks Down, and so begins a kaleidoscopic tour through the social strata of early...
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