The Quiet and the Loud (Helena Fox, Pan)
Tuesday, 31 January 2023
Helena Fox, author of award-winning debut How It Feels to Float, returns with another powerful, heart-tugging YA novel. Nine years after her dad disappeared under the lake, 18-year-old George is...
Return to Valetto (Dominic Smith, A&U)
Tuesday, 24 January 2023
This is the sixth novel from Australian-American author Dominic Smith, perhaps best known locally for his 2017 ABIA-winning novel The Last Painting of Sara de Vos. The fictional Valetto, in...
The God of No Good (Sita Walker, Ultimo)
Tuesday, 24 January 2023
The memoir of Brisbane schoolteacher Sita Walker begins with divorce papers and a side of vanilla custard slice. But there are much more pressing things on Walker’s mind than the...
Nightbirds (Kate J Armstrong, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 24 January 2023
Magic is illegal in Simta, punishable by death, but that does not mean it does not exist. Matilde, Æsa, and Sayer are nightbirds: privileged girls who have the ability to...
Everywhen (ed by Ann McGrath, Laura Rademaker & Jakelin Troy, UNSW Press)
Tuesday, 24 January 2023
Since the colonisation of Australia, representations of Indigenous peoples and Indigenous worldviews created by anthropologists, archaeologists and historians (among other disciplines) have rendered Indigenous subjectivities and ontologies as lesser. Everywhen:...
The Glow (Sofie Laguna, illus by Marc McBride, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 17 January 2023
The Song of Lewis Carmichael brought us the excellent pairing of author Sofie Laguna and illustrator Marc McBride. The Glow is their latest collaboration, a thrilling sci-fi adventure with a...
Children of Tomorrow (J R Burgmann, Upswell)
Tuesday, 17 January 2023
J R Burgmann’s debut novel is an intergenerational story that foresees a century of environmental devastation. We begin in the present day, when one of our protagonists, Arne, bears witness...
One Illumined Thread (Sally Colin-James, Fourth Estate)
Tuesday, 17 January 2023
Fans of Sarah Winman and Pip Williams will love Sally Colin-James’s debut novel One Illumined Thread, an intriguing story of three women separated by centuries yet inextricably connected by their...
Dark Mode (Ashley Kalagian Blunt, Ultimo)
Tuesday, 10 January 2023
Dark Mode opens with the graphic discovery of a woman disturbingly murdered in the same way as the infamous, unsolved case of the Black Dahlia. Also disturbing for Reagan Carsen,...
Once a Stranger (Zoya Patel, Hachette)
Tuesday, 10 January 2023
Following on from her debut memoir No Country Woman, Zoya Patel’s novel Once a Stranger tackles the same themes of cultural bereavement, being caught between two different worlds and the...
Matt Formston: Surfing in the Dark (John Dickson, illus by Philip Bunting, Berbay)
Tuesday, 10 January 2023
People who are blind, who achieve incredible feats, are the linchpin of ‘Big Visions’, an exciting new nonfiction picture book series from Berbay Books and Vision Australia, aimed at 7–12-year-olds...
Sea Glass (Rebecca Fraser, Wombat Books)
Tuesday, 6 December 2022
Rebecca Fraser is a vibrant voice in Australian junior fiction. Her novel Sea Glass is the beautifully executed story of 11-year-old Cailin, a pre-teen who is stuck with her mother...
The Hotel Witch (Jessica Miller, Text)
Tuesday, 6 December 2022
With a cast of larger-than-life characters that almost pop off the page, The Hotel Witch is the wonderfully imaginative new adventure from Jessica Miller, who previously brought us The Republic...
Tanya Plibersek: On her own terms (Margaret Simons, Black Inc.)
Tuesday, 6 December 2022
Swept unexpectedly at only 28 into the safe seat of Sydney, Tanya Plibersek was the golden girl at the heart of Labor politics when the party was looking to increase...
Viking Women (Lisa Hannett, Thames & Hudson)
Tuesday, 6 December 2022
Literature academic and speculative fiction author Lisa Hannett has written an evocative account of the varied lives of women during the Viking era. Hannett uses her vast knowledge of Vikings...
You Made Me This Way (Shannon Molloy, Fourth Estate)
Tuesday, 29 November 2022
Known for his feature journalism as well as his acclaimed memoir of teenage struggle, Fourteen, Shannon Molloy has turned his keen eye to a more expansive project in You Made...
The One Thing We’ve Never Spoken About (Elfy Scott, Pantera)
Tuesday, 29 November 2022
In The One Thing We’ve Never Spoken About, Sydney-based journalist and podcast presenter Elfy Scott uses her talent for explaining complicated issues in accessible ways to examine the myths and...
Two Can Play That Game (Leanne Yong, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 22 November 2022
Leanne Yong’s debut Two Can Play That Game is a joyful and fun addition to the growing Asian-Australian Own Voices YA movement, joining the likes of Tiger Daughter and The...
A Man of Honour (Simon Smith, Echo)
Tuesday, 22 November 2022
When debut novelist Simon Smith was a child he was told, ‘Someone in our family shot a prince.’ That man was Henry James O’Farrell, whose failed attempt in 1868 to...
Smashing Serendipity (Louise K Hansen, Fremantle Press)
Tuesday, 15 November 2022
Proud Binjareb Nyoongar woman Louise K Hansen unfortunately passed away before her profound memoir, Smashing Serendipity: The story of one Moordtj Yorga, was published. But the strong stories from her...
The Death of John Lacey (Ben Hobson, A&U)
Tuesday, 15 November 2022
Ben Hobson’s third novel tells the fragmented story of the life and demise of John Lacey, a ruthless, violent settler of a Victorian gold rush town. John and his brother...
Maggie (Catherine Johns, Hachette)
Tuesday, 15 November 2022
In Catherine Johns’s debut novel, a 17-year-old Catholic school girl’s life is derailed when she becomes enamoured of her priest. It’s 1967 and Maggie is a straight-A student whose education...
Tumbleglass (Kate Constable, A&U Children’s)
Tuesday, 15 November 2022
Rowan is helping her big sister Ash with painting her room when suddenly they find themselves in 1999, at a party in the very same house. While Ash wants to...
This Time it’s Real (Ann Liang, Penguin)
Tuesday, 15 November 2022
Ann Liang’s This Time it’s Real is a vibrant young adult romantic comedy with its heart in the right place. When 17-year-old Eliza Lin’s school essay about her fabricated love...
Little Plum (Laura McPhee-Browne, Text)
Tuesday, 8 November 2022
Little Plum is the second novel by the award-winning author of Cherry Beach, Laura McPhee-Browne. The story unfolds around 29-year-old Coral, who decides to follow through with a pregnancy from...
You Talk, We Die (Judy Ryan, Scribe)
Tuesday, 8 November 2022
Safe injecting rooms have been a polarising issue in Victoria for decades. Years of debate, government inquiries, coroner’s reports, media conjecture and scare campaigns have plagued any productive conversation. But...
Brain is (Not) Always Right (Scott Stuart, Scholastic)
Tuesday, 8 November 2022
Scott Stuart may have come to creating books for children in an unconventional way, but the social media storm surrounding his support for his child to be everything they could...
Cloud Land (Penny van Oosterzee, A&U)
Tuesday, 8 November 2022
In the gripping and extensively researched Cloud Land, Penny van Oosterzee imagines what a small region of Queensland’s Atherton Tablelands has witnessed over both geological time and since white settlement....
The Exclusion Zone (Shastra Deo, UQP)
Wednesday, 2 November 2022
‘You are searching for something,’ begins The Exclusion Zone. It's a provocation that forms the manifesto for the enthralling and ingenious second poetry collection from Shastra Deo following her ALS...
Timeless (Kelly Canby, Fremantle Press)
Tuesday, 1 November 2022
A topical theme in these social media-obsessed days, Timeless tells the tale of Emit, a young boy whose parents are always too preoccupied to pay attention to him. Tired of...
