by NRB | 26 Sep 2024 | Fiction, SFF |
Spies, magic, intrigue, and the human cost of an expanding empire all feature in Australian author Alina Bellchambers’ debut fantasy. Growing up on the run from mysterious criminals with her mother, Mira has always dreamed of having safety and stability; of being able...
by NRB | 24 Sep 2024 | Fiction, SFF |
Not just astronauts and science experiments: Larry Buttrose’s stories imagine what it would be like if we had to live on Mars. One of the most memorable opening lines in fiction is Ford Maddox Ford’s ‘This is the saddest story I have ever heard.’ The Good Soldier is...
by NRB | 12 Sep 2024 | Fiction |
Malcolm Knox’s new novel satirises the brutal madness of the Soviet Union, focussing on Stalin’s notorious head of secret police, Beria. In the business of producing fiction, the novelist can never keep up with authoritarian political leaders. Such leaders offer an...
by NRB | 30 May 2024 | Fiction |
Set in 17th-century London, Lauren Chater’s new novel brings together a royal artist, a young woman’s quest and the real-life Anne Hyde. What do you do if the king invites you to share his bed but you find the idea repulsive? A wave of nausea ripples through her...
by NRB | 16 Apr 2024 | Fiction |
Miranda Darling deploys all the voices in her protagonist’s head to reveal a fraught relationship in this allusive novella. Winona Dalloway, like Mrs Dalloway in Virginia Woolf’s novel of that name, often finds herself ‘lilting between observing life from the outside...
by NRB | 11 Apr 2024 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
A new crime novel by Garry Disher is always exciting. In Sanctuary, he introduces a new protagonist: a female lone wolf. Meet Grace. She’s a very good thief, having been taught by experts and practising since she was a kid. Specialising in small, high-value...
by NRB | 12 Mar 2024 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
The new novel from the author of The Spiral and The Student delivers a noir excursion into the underbelly of the Gold Coast in the 1980s. Steeped in corruption, incompetence, and alcohol, 1980s Queensland seems like the perfect setting for a distinctly Australian...
by NRB | 27 Feb 2024 | Fiction, SFF |
Mykaela Saunders’ stories imagine a future where the connection to land and culture is central. Mykaela Saunders won an Aurealis award for her exciting and thought-provoking anthology of First Nations speculative fiction This All Come Back Now. In the same year her...
by NRB | 6 Feb 2024 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
Benjamin Stevenson’s sharp eye and love of the crime genre are on display in this follow-up to Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone. After the success of his last novel Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, Benjamin Stevenson has returned with a sequel of...
by NRB | 23 Jan 2024 | Fiction |
The new novel from the award-winning author of The Slap and Damascus is a story of starting over. The In-Between is a story of two men, older and scarred by life, who know that they still have much to offer. They are looking to share the second half of their lives...
by NRB | 17 Jan 2024 | Fiction |
Homelessness, a mother and daughter on the lam – Trent Dalton’s third novel sprinkles magic dust on Brisbane’s grim underbelly. I was bothered by Lola in the Mirror. I enjoyed Trent Dalton’s earlier novels Boy Swallows Universe and All Our Shimmering Skies, and Lola...
by NRB | 14 Dec 2023 | Crime Scene, Fiction |
In Adrian Hyland’s latest crime novel, Jesse Redpath is back, stationed in a new town during a time of stormy weather. The much anticipated follow-up to Canticle Creek, The Wiregrass is set in the temperate rainforest area of Victoria in the fictional town of...
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 [ … ]