INEZ BARANAY Ghosts Like Us. Reviewed by Isobel Blackthorn
Ghosts Like Us is a poetic, ambiguous and subversive exploration of the nature of history and remembering. ‘the air of the present moment here’ … This puzzling opening line embodies the essence of a fine literary work: a little obscure for some, fresh air for...
SAMANTHA TRENOWETH (Ed) Better Than Sex: Women talk about sex and romance in the digital age. Reviewed by Annette Hughes
Better Than Sex is not just a book about the effect of the internet on relationships, but a close look at all the ways of being, meeting, relating and finding love. When I read Samantha Trenoweth’s introduction to her latest anthology Better Than Sex, I had to do a...
HELEN GARNER Everywhere I Look. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
The Helen Garner of Everywhere I Look is as contradictory as she’s ever been in this collection brimming with highlights. At the opening event of the 2014 Melbourne Writers Festival, Helen Garner read from her then newly released book about the trial of Robert...
ELISABETH STORRS Call to Juno: Tales of Ancient Rome Book 3. Reviewed by Folly Gleeson
This is historical fiction at its best in the final volume of the Tales of Ancient Rome trilogy. Call to Juno is the final volume of the story of Aemilia Caeciliana, a Roman who was married as a teenager to Vel Mastarna, a powerful Etruscan warrior, in 406 BC. This...
Justine Larbalestier giveaway
We have a copy of Justine Larbalestier’s new novel My Sister Rosa to give away. To win, simply email us at editors@newtownreviewofbooks.com.au by 6pm Tuesday April 19 with your name and address and ‘My Sister Rosa’ in the subject line. As we cannot afford...
JUSTINE LARBALESTIER My Sister Rosa. Reviewed by Chris Maher
The author of young adult novels Liar and Razorhurst crosses into an older readership with this disturbing story of a young man trying to protect his sister from her psychopathic tendencies. I’m sure conservative moral guardians like MPs Corey Bernardi and George...
LUCY TRELOAR Salt Creek. Reviewed by Michelle McLaren
Inspired by family history and written in wonderfully fluid prose, Salt Creek brings to life the harsh beauty and the racially troubled past of the Coorong. In the Author’s Note at the end of this debut novel Lucy Treloar reveals that although the events that...
Crime Scene: CATH FERLA Ghost Girls. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm
Steeped in the smells and sounds of Sydney’s Chinatown, weighted by the sinister atmosphere of a private world of terrible crimes, Ghost Girls is a remarkable debut novel. The combination of plot, character and setting in Ghost Girls is perfectly balanced, and the...
FIONA MCFARLANE The High Places. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
Everyday life evaporates into unsettling ambiguity in Fiona McFarlane’s new collection of short stories. McFarlane explored the slipperiness of reality in her novel The Night Guest – shortlisted for the 2014 Miles Franklin award – where the central character, Ruth,...
Crime Scene: AOIFE CLIFFORD All These Perfect Strangers. Reviewed by Ruth Wykes
This taut, beautifully written Australian crime fiction debut takes a fresh approach. This is about three deaths. Actually more, if you go back far enough. I say deaths but perhaps all of them were murders. It’s a grey area. Murder, like beauty, is in the eye of the...
SHAKIRA HUSSEIN From Victims to Suspects: Muslim women since 9/11. Reviewed by Linda Funnell
Do Muslim women need saving by the West? How have attitudes in the West changed towards Muslim women since those planes flew into the Twin Towers? Shakira Hussein’s book opens with a description of a celebrity fundraiser in New York for Afghan women. It is February...
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