‘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 […]
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 […]
Full disclosure: I purchased this book for the sole purpose of examining the structure, after discovering that the whole novel is set over a time period of just one hour. I wanted to see how the author managed it. What I discovered is that she achieved it with finely-crafted, exquisite skill. Walker etches characters with […]
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 […]
‘Doll Parts’ is a dual timeline suspense involving goth girls, the poetry of Sylvia Plath, a string of suicides, and a fractured, yet resilient, friendship. Cleverly entwining poetry and popular music with lyric prose, Zang takes us on a beautiful journey through girlhood and beyond. “‘It was the kind of pink-hazed sky that called for […]
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 […]
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 […]
Liam Murphy should be extremely proud of his debut novel, The Roadmap of Loss. A road-trip with a twist, the story takes us on a journey through the US and into the mind of a troubled man searching for something intangible. Lyrical, melancholy, humorous; it’s all that and more. From the Publishers: Raw and uncompromising, […]
