LUCY TRELOAR Wolfe Island. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
This new novel from the author of Salt Creek is set in a future America that looks disturbingly familiar. There’s a gloriously metafictional moment in Mel Brooks’s 1987 Star Wars parody Spaceballs when the film’s antagonist, Dark Helmet, attempts to discover...
JESSICA DETTMANN How to Be Second Best. Reviewed by Ashley Kalagian Blunt
Jessica Dettmann’s debut romantic comedy blends the family drama of Liane Moriarty with the humour of Sophie Kinsella. Emma’s husband Troy loves her. He insists that he loves her, even when Emma discovers Troy’s affair with his Pilates instructor in this...
JENNY ACKLAND Little Gods. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
Ackland crafts perfect scenes in Little Gods – a novel about the things that fade away: childhood, memories and ghosts. Olive Lovelock is 12 years old and fearless. She tells people that the old binoculars she wears around her neck all the time are...KIRSTY MANNING The Jade Lily. Reviewed by Kim Kelly
Through the lens of friendship and romance The Jade Lily traces the way war smashes and transforms identity and truth. Sometimes the secrets we keep are gifts of love, and it’s this kind of refreshingly unvarnished love that sits at the heart of Kirsty Manning’s...
LAUREN CHATER The Lace Weaver. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
In The Lace Weaver the narrative twists and turns like the weave of the lace at its core. ‘Estonia has five seasons’, we are told in the opening lines of The Lace Weaver, the debut novel from Sydney writer Lauren Chater. There are the usual four that most...
GLENDA GUEST A Week in the Life of Cassandra Aberline. Reviewed by Linda Funnell
A Week in the Life of Cassandra Aberline exists on the plane of memories, where grief can enlarge small events and erase larger ones. Glenda Guest’s follow-up to her prizewinning debut Siddon Rock (2009) is a novel of memory and betrayal. It opens with a brief,...
ADA LANGTON The Art of Preserving Love. Reviewed by Kim Kelly
Ada Langton’s The Art of Preserving Love is a carefully controlled, rambling rose bush of a tale. From the opening chapter title of this delightful debut, it’s clear this is historical fiction told with warmth and a hint of mischief: Early in the...
PIP SMITH Half Wild. Reviewed by Robin Elizabeth
Half Wild is heart-warming, confusing and deeply unsettling all at the same time. This debut novel by Pip Smith is based on the life of the person variously known as Eugenia Falleni, Harry Crawford and Jean Ford. It is a work of impressive scope, covering three...
MEREDITH JAFFÉ The Making of Christina. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
The Making of Christina asks how well we know the people we love and if we can pay the price of truth. The Making of Christina is not a light read. Its subject matter is trauma, guilt and deceit. The result is neither pretty nor soothing, but this is not its intent....
ANNA SPARGO-RYAN The Gulf. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
The author of The Paper House returns with The Gulf, a moving tale of growing up before your time. ‘Can’t believe I met him in Big W. I mean, of all places. Just so romantic to bump into each other in the line. He let me go ahead of him, you know. Real gentleman...
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 blossoming bruise. It is...
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