Australian fiction

Tidelines by Sarah Sasson

Reviewed by Annie Condon

Sarah Sasson’s debut novel, Tidelines, explores the relationship between a brother and sister. Elijah nicknames his sister after she is born premature and pale; he points to her and says ‘Grub’. Grub is in thrall to her brother, and…

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We All Lived in Bondi Then by Georgia Blain

Reviewed by Aurelia Orr

Shortly after she passed away at the end of 2016, Georgia Blain’s final novel, Between a Wolf and a Dog, won the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction. The soul and passion of her writing now comes to…

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The Conversion by Amanda Lohrey

Reviewed by Chris Gordon

‘Home is where the heart is,’ says everyone everywhere, but here in this unique novel, Amanda Lohrey asks why people are driven to make a space their own. Fans of the award-winning author will be delighted to read this quiet…

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The In-Between by Christos Tsiolkas

Reviewed by Emma Davison

Two middle-aged men, Ivan and Perry, meet up one evening after finding each other on an internet dating site. Both men have been hurt in the past by complicated love, yet they can’t help feeling the spark of possibility. This…

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Women & Children by Tony Birch

Reviewed by Ruby Grinter

Lovely, mischievous Joe Cluny is living in 1960s Melbourne with his older sister, Ruby, and their mother, Marion. Ruby has gone away to the country for a few weeks, and Joe must spend his days with his grandfather, Charlie (‘Char’)…

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Gunflower: Stories by Laura Jean McKay

Reviewed by Joe Murray

Short story collections are a rare pleasure, a chance to glimpse an author’s fascinations and preoccupations across a series of vivid imaginings, each individual ‘blazing moment’ nonetheless contributing to a unified whole. That pleasure is front and centre in Laura…

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The Opposite of Success by Eleanor Elliott Thomas

Reviewed by Lian Hingee

I was on page two of Eleanor Elliott Thomas’s debut novel The Opposite of Success when I laughed out loud for the first time. By page five, I was reading paragraphs aloud to my partner. I found this story about…

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Green Dot by Madeleine Gray

Reviewed by Aurelia Orr

What is it about human nature that is so enticed by the thought of chasing something we were never meant to have? Do we each have a forbidden fruit we shouldn’t taste? What happens when we don’t just taste it…

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Prima Facie by Suzie Miller

Reviewed by Aurelia Orr

Written as the novelisation of the award-winning play Prima Facie, Suzie Miller delivers a riveting and urgent story of one woman, who represents millions, and the legal system that sets them up for failure.

Tessa is the best criminal…

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Lola In the Mirror by Trent Dalton

Reviewed by Chris Gordon

Trent Dalton is never going to write fiction for fiction’s sake. He is a journalist, after all. Therefore, there is always more to his stories than a simple quest or love scenario. In his wonderful third novel, he takes you…

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