Our latest reviews
Practice by Rosalind Brown
Scholarly success demands a certain ascetic discipline and Annabel, the protagonist of Rosalind Brown’s exceptional debut novel, thinks she’s adopted all the right habits. She’s spending a cold Sunday at the end of January in her Oxford rooms, rising early…
Butter by Asako Yuzuki & Polly Barton (trans.)
A self-proclaimed domestic goddess turned murderer and a quietly obsessive journalist desperate for a story meet in a prison to discuss boeuf bourguignon. They couldn’t have anything in common, right? Or will they come to understand more about each other…
Cool Water by Myfanwy Jones
In the 1950s a dam was constructed in Far North Queensland. In the process, the town that had existed there previously was emptied and flooded, remaining beneath the water even today. There is something haunting and unsettling about this idea…
Lead Us Not by Abbey Lay
Millie is in her final year of high school at ‘Our Lady’s’, a Catholic school that Abbey Lay ensures is dripping with recognisable details of at least an element of every Australian’s education experience. The school is not our –…
Appreciation by Liam Pieper
Oliver Darling is a young(ish) queer artist from the country, according to his bio, who has made it big not only in the Australian art scene, but also internationally. If he were remotely competent with money, he would be extremely…
One Another by Gail Jones
A story within another story. A research thesis within a distraction. Layer upon layer, Gail Jones has skilfully woven multiple narratives into a tightly held novel that will undo the reader with its poignancy. This is a novel about betrayal…
Thanks for Having Me by Emma Darragh
Thanks for Having Me is a novel told in interlinked stories, and even though you might think, ‘I don’t like short stories,’ it’s worth considering that some of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novels – Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout; A Visit…
Sisters of Sword and Shadow by Laura Bates
Sisters of Sword and Shadow is an engaging story that offers a different take on the legends of the Knights of the Round Table. A must-read for teen girls, this Young Adult–Arthurian fantasy is easy to read and follows our…
The Fight for the Hidden Realm (Paper Dragons, Book 1) by Siobhan McDermott & Yuzhen Cai (illus.)
The Fight for the Hidden Realm, the first in the new Paper Dragons series, had me hooked from page one. Reminiscent of bestselling series such as Percy Jackson, Nevermoor, and The School of Good & Evil, this debut novel…
The Beehive by Megan Daley & Max Hamilton (illus.)
Here in Australia, when someone says the word ‘bee’, our first thoughts are usually of the brown and yellow European Honey Bee – which is fine. However, I do think it would be wonderful if when the word ‘bee’ was…
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