ARAVIND ADIGA Amnesty. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Booker Prize-winning author Aravind Adiga takes on the issue of refugees and asylum seekers in his latest novel Amnesty. Set in Sydney, on a day sometime in the recent past, Amnesty concentrates on Dhananjaya Rajaratnam, aka Danny the Cleaner, as he grapples with his...
SOPHIE HARDCASTLE Below Deck. Reviewed by Ann Skea
Sophie Hardcastle’s second novel explores the lure of the sea, and the cost of violence. It starts below deck. Olivia (Oli) has been kidnapped. Well, not actually kidnapped but rescued late at night, in a drunken stupor, by Mac, an old man who now needs to...
EVIE WYLD The Bass Rock. Reviewed by Linda Funnell
Evie Wyld won the Miles Franklin Award for her last novel, All the Birds, Singing. Her latest, set on the coast of Scotland, contains both beauty and violence. The Bass Rock opens with a small girl, who we will shortly meet as the grown-up Viv, finding the body of a...
PHILIP PULLMAN The Secret Commonwealth: Volume Two of The Book of Dust. Reviewed by Chris Maher
The new series from the author of the bestselling His Dark Materials continues in The Secret Commonwealth. For young adults, breaking up with a lover who seems to know your inner thoughts is a heart-wrenching experience. How painful then to break up with your actual...
PETRONELLA MCGOVERN Six Minutes. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
Petronella McGovern’s debut thriller contains a lesson for the digital age. Six Minutes. A lost child. That’s it in a nutshell. As the world witnessed in horror the unfolding of the infamous James Bulger case in the early 1990s, or Madeline McCann’s...
DAVID VANN Halibut on the Moon. Reviewed by James McKenzie Watson
David Vann turns his personal family trauma into a disturbing work of fiction. Most Australian readers will be unfamiliar with the name David Vann, despite the fact he’s frequently compared to literary giants like Cormac McCarthy and Ernest Hemingway in his...
SUSANNA KEARSLEY Every Secret Thing. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
Susanna Kearsley explores the impact of wartime secrets in Every Secret Thing. The award-winning author of Mariana is best-known for time-slip romances moving between the present and the distant past. Every Secret Thing, however, is a book somewhere between crime...
KATE MASCARENHAS The Psychology of Time Travel. Reviewed by Amelia Dudley
In this debut novel Kate Mascarenhas creates a world where time travel is not only possible, it could be linked to a murder … In 1967, four female scientists invent time travel, but only three of them become household names for the right reason. The fourth,...
DOMINIC SMITH The Electric Hotel. Reviewed by Jeannette Delamoir
The early years of cinema in Paris and US infuse this new novel from the Dominic Smith, author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos. Dominic Smith loves historical settings. His previous book, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, featured a fictional 17th-century...JHUMPA LAHIRI The Lowland. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies delivers a compelling family story of secrets, love and duty. The Lowland is the story of two brothers and one woman, and a tragedy that reverberates down four generations. It is a tale of two countries; of...T C BOYLE San Miguel. Reviewed by Kylie Mason
Desolation and isolation haunt two families living decades apart on the bleakest of California’s Channel Islands On New Year’s Day, 1888, Marantha Waters arrives on San Miguel island, off the Californian coast, with her husband, Will, daughter, Edith, and maid,...
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