JANE CARO The Mother. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
Jane Caro’s new novel deals frankly with coercive control. Though I knew the gist of the issues raised by The Mother before I began – I’d read the devastating stories of victims of domestic violence, watched the news, and thought I understood the issues – this...
DIANA REID Love & Virtue. Reviewed by Emma Foster
Diana Reid’s debut novel poses some philosophical dilemmas. University campus culture was fresh for Diana Reid when she began writing Love & Virtue. She had recently graduated from The University of Sydney in early 2020 when Covid kyboshed her plans to tour...
WENDY JAMES A Little Bird. Reviewed by Kim Kelly
The ninth novel from Wendy James is a classic page-turning mystery that is both psychologically complex and authentically Australian. Best known as the ‘queen of domestic noir’, James brings a keen understanding of social and political history to her richly layered...
CAROL MAJOR The Asparagus Wars. Reviewed by Linda Godfrey
Stretching from France to the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Carol Major’s memoir is a meditation on family, grief and love. This memoir by Carol Major comprises three strands woven into one heartbreaking narrative of a woman and her daughter. Written as a...
MICHELLE DE KRETSER Scary Monsters. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Miles Franklin-winner Michelle de Kretser offers unsettling possibilities and questions to ponder in her latest fiction. Scary Monsters is really two novels in one book. The publishers decided to print each novel so that it starts from the opposite end of the book....
EMILY BITTO Wild Abandon. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Emily Bitto won the Stella Prize in 2015 for her first novel The Strays. Her second, Wild Abandon, was worth the wait. Wild Abandon is a kind of coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of two very different sides of America (the book itself is divided into two...
JENNIFER MILLS The Airways. Reviewed by Jessica Stewart
The Airways is Jennifer Mills’ third novel and ranges from Sydney to Beijing as it explores themes of infection and the banality of violence. Someone recently tweeted that if we gave male violence the same attention as Covid, men would have been under curfew for...
TONI JORDAN The Fragments. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
Welcome to Flashback Fridays! This is a new monthly feature where we review books we overlooked when they first appeared. This week, Michelle McLaren discusses Toni Jordan’s 2018 novel of intrigue and literary obsession, The Fragments. All Has an End was Inga...
LIANE MORIARTY Apples Never Fall. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
The new novel from the author of Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers delivers a family mystery told from multiple perspectives. Apples Never Fall, the latest novel from New York Times bestselling author Liane Moriarty, opens with a mystery. We witness a...
CHARLOTTE McCONAGHY Once There Were Wolves. Reviewed by Ann Skea.
Charlotte McConaghy follows up her international bestseller The Last Migration with a story of wolves and the Scottish Highlands. When I was eight, Dad cut me open from throat to stomach. Such a dramatic first line promises a dramatic story and Once There Were Wolves...
AMANDA LOHREY The Labyrinth: A pastoral. Reviewed by Linda Godfrey
Amanda Lohrey’s Miles Franklin-winnning novel explores notions of impermanence and healing in a small coastal town. This book’s epigraph is ‘The cure for many ills, noted Jung, is to build something.’ In Part One of this novel, the main character, Erica Marsden,...
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