‘He feels a crease of disappointment, but it’s a mere fingerprint in a pie’s crust, one of the many dimples pressed into the soft dough of his soul. That quote, from the exquisite opening paragraph in chapter one of Mirandi Riwoe’s A SHORT HISTORY OF LONGANS, sets the tone for this most sublime of novels. […]
If you are a fan of Kris Kneen’s writing, you might come to Rite of Spring for the erotica. And, yes, there’s plenty of that. But this book is so much more. I think of it as an allegory for bodily change and transformation. Through the central character of Miranda, Kneen invites the reader to […]
Edwina Shaw shines a direct and bright light on evil and society’s role in it by weaving fact, creative non-fiction, and memoir in this exploration of generational trauma. Who would imagine that an account of horrific murder and its consequences could be both frightening and tender? There’s a wide vulnerability between the pages that I […]
Prepare yourself for a magical, lyrical, poetic journey as you wind your way from the end to the beginning and back again in this stunningly original novel. I read it slowly, returning to passages and sentences, mulling over words, constantly astounded. “And I learnt in that moment that love is a document that has to […]
I read this quite a while ago, actually, but my travels got in the way of writing about it. Donna M Cameron won a KSP Fellowship for the manuscript, and rightly so; the novel is beautiful. Goodbye, Sydney, city of mirrors, beautiful whore who has sucked him dry. The subject matter lends itself to something […]
What a fantastic debut crime thriller from Elise Janes (Jett Books). Cover art: tick (by Kylie Pye Design) Setting: tick (primarily Melbourne, one of my favourite cities) Mystery: tick (What is Sam’s secret? What happened to Catriona? Are there more paintings?) Crime: tick (eight deaths … and counting?) Subject: tick (Murder, […]
I loved Lyn Yeowart’s first book, ‘The Silent Listener’ and so I came to ‘The Hollow Girl’ with high expectations. Thankfully, I was not disappointed. The blurb intro sets the scene: HARROWFORD HALL A safe haven for lost girls? Or a breeding ground for revenge? Harrowford Hall is aptly named. It is, indeed, a harrowing place, […]
I’m more than a little late to the party with Janet Lee’s 2018 book (the manuscript won the Emerging Queensland Writer category in the 2017 Queensland Literary Awards) ‘The Killing of Louisa’ (UQP). What a stunning imagining of the real Louisa Collins’ final days as she remembers her big life events. Louisa’s thoughts on her […]
This is a book to take your time over, to pause constantly and consider the questions Rawson asks. Just when I began to think I might understand nature/conservation/humans/animals, I back-flipped. And I did it again and again as I turned the pages of this thoughtful creative book. The final sentence of the back cover blurb […]
What a fabulous debut from Diane Clarke. Meticulously researched and evocatively set in North Wales and England, it explores the plight of WWII child evacuees through dual timelines. Through its tight cast of perfectly imperfect characters, the author showcases the damage that secrets can cause, especially within families. I confess to minimal sleep as I […]
