Our Dance (Jacinta Daniher & Taylor Hampton, illus by Janelle Burger, Lothian)
Children’s picture book
Released May 2025, reviewed by Merril Darling.
Our Dance by Jacinta Daniher and proud Ngiyampaa/Wiradjuri man Taylor Hampton celebrates Australian First Nations culture through the joy of...
My Supercharged ADHD Brain (Dani Vee & James Layton, illus Ruth-Mary Smith, Larrikin)
Children’s picture book
Released May 2025, reviewed by Karys McEwen.
My Supercharged ADHD Brain is a brightly coloured picture book that candidly explores some of the positive aspects of having...
The Book of Guilt (Catherine Chidgey, Penguin)
Fiction
Released May 2025, reviewed by Stefen Brazulaitis.
Welcome to an alternative version of the UK in the 1970s. In Catherine Chidgey’s The Book of Guilt, Hitler was...
The Letter Writer (Binny Talib, Windy Hollow)
Children’s picture book
Released May 2025, reviewed by Jess Lomas.
The Letter Writer by author and illustrator Binny Talib (Sloths Love Parties) opens with stunning endpapers – a delightful collage...
Find me at the Jaffa Gate: An encyclopaedia of a Palestinian family (Micaela Sahhar, NewSouth)
Nonfiction
Released May 2025, reviewed by Hellai Gul.
Several generations into the Palestinian diaspora in Australia, Micaela Sahhar explores the complexities of being disconnected from her ancestral land...
The Edge of Everything (Miranda Luby, Text)
Young adult
Released May 2025, reviewed by Angela Crocombe.
In The Edge of Everything, Miranda Luby (Sadie Starr’s Guide to Starting Over) tells a poignant story of a teenager...
The Haunting of Hindmarsh Hall (Kate Gordon, Riveted Press)
Younger readers
Released May 2025, reviewed by Megan O'Brien.
The Haunting of Hindmarsh Hall is the first book in The Secret Detectives Club middle-grade series by Kate Gordon (Xavier...
I Want Everything (Dominic Amerena, S&S)
Fiction
Released May 2025, reviewed by Joy Lawn.
An unnamed aspiring writer leaves a Melbourne hospital and, seeking distraction, swims laps at his local pool. There, he recognises...
Lonely Mouth (Jacqueline Maley, Fourth Estate)
Fiction
Released May 2025, reviewed by Jess Lomas.
Jacqueline Maley (The Truth About Her) returns with Lonely Mouth, a powerful exploration of family, trauma and identity. Half-sisters Matilda...
Too Many Dogs (Maura Finn, illus Lucinda Gifford, Affirm)
Children’s picture book
Released May 2025, reviewed by Karys McEwen .
Too Many Dogs is a charming and light-hearted picture book from the creative pairing behind Too Many Cats that explores...
Nightingale (Laura Elvery, UQP)
Fiction
Released May 2025, reviewed by Kate Dunphy.
Grounded in history and buoyed by Laura Elvery’s elegant, moving prose, Nightingale is a fictional reimagining of the near-mythic figure...
Viet Kieu: Recipes Remembered from Vietnam (Thi Le, Murdoch)
Nonfiction
Released May 2025, reviewed by Sophie Pusz.
‘Viet Kieu’ is a Vietnamese term used for people of Vietnamese heritage who were raised and are living in the...
Diggers, Dozers, and Dumpers (Ole Könnecke, Gecko)
Children’s picture book
Released May 2025, reviewed by Jess Lomas.
Picture books about machinery are always a hit, but they don’t always deliver an engaging narrative – this one does,...
The Bearcat (Georgia Rose Phillips, Picador)
Fiction
Released May 2025, reviewed by Charlotte Callander.
Based on true events, The Bearcat is an ambitious, mesmeric and deeply affecting debut novel that imagines the inner life...
The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains (Sarah Clutton, A&U)
Fiction
Released May 2025, reviewed by Sarina Gale.
Sarah Clutton’s The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains is a richly woven novel that explores family dynamics, small-town life and...
This Dream Will Devour Us (Emma Clancey, A&U Children’s)
Young adult
Released May 2025, reviewed by Marissa Kyriakopoulos.
What if humanity developed a drug that could manipulate the elements – essentially perform magic? In This Dream Will Devour...
He Would Never (Holly Wainwright, Macmillan)
Fiction
Released May 2025, reviewed by Alida Galati.
Holly Wainwright’s fifth novel, He Would Never, is pacy, compelling and character-driven, and will hook readers from the startling first...
The Girl and the Ghost (Jacqueline Harvey, Penguin)
Younger readers
Released May 2025, reviewed by Charlotte Callander.
Jacqueline Harvey, author of the best-selling Alice-Miranda and Kensy and Max books, returns with The Girl and the Ghost, the...
Letters to Our Robot Son (Cadance Bell, Ultimo)
Fiction
Released May 2025, reviewed by Kate Cuthbert.
Letters to Our Robot Son is the fiction debut of memoirist Cadance Bell (The All of It: A Bogan Rhapsody),...
Little World (Josephine Rowe, Black Inc.)
Fiction
Released May 2025, reviewed by Ash Davida Jane.
Josephine Rowe’s Little World is a compact, lyrical read that feels both mythic and frighteningly current. When the perfectly preserved...
