Published...Or Not

Insight and satire abound in short stories about The advertising industry in ’Sadvertising’ by Ennis Cehic. Dominique Wilson traverses one hundred years of Australian history in her novel, ‘Orphan Rock’, giving us a glimpse at the attitudes and mores that have changed and those things, like pandemics, that have stayed the same. 

Australia is diverse, Keren Heenen is one of the sixteen writers who surprise you, as they take you to places you know, or think you know, in ‘The Furphy Anthology’, selected stories from the Furphy Literary Award in 2021. Far from being about an isolated case of abuse, Mandy Beaumont’s, ‘The Furies’, speaks to the endemic victimization of women in society and one doesn’t have to look too far beyo...

Most people have obsessions, Katherine Collette has written about those who take on speech making in ‘The Competition’.  This delightful read has a mixture of memorable characters who find happiness despite themselves. Megan Albany’s account of someone dying of cancer balances both the tragic and comic in her novel,' The Last List of Vivian Walker', where the mundane and ordinary in characters’ li...

Emily Brugman writes of the Finnish migrants building homes and families in Australia, connected by hard work, crayfish, the beauty and the terror of the sea and nature in ‘The Islands’.Garry Disher’s cold case mystery in, ‘The Way It Is Now’, counterpoints the past and the present when a now mature but suspended policeman finds more similarities with his constable father than he realized.  

During a bombing raid over Yorkshire in WW2, a German pilot is shot down and protected by a farming family for what reason and what risk? Karen Turner has written a big book of sacrifice and love and what the past can teach us in ‘Stormbird’.  Garry Disher’s cold case mystery in, ‘The Way It Is Now’, counterpoints the past and the present when a now mature but suspended policeman finds more simila...

In Joy Dettman’s ‘The Hope Flower’ there is a volatile mother, her children raise themselves away from the gaze of the authorities, but when she emerges after body shaping surgery, will it be for hope or hell? Michael McGirr provides us with a potted history of philosophy connecting the ideas and themes in a very personal way to his own real life experiences and challenges in, ‘Ideas to Save Your...

Patsy Popenbeek is one of 40 contributors to ‘South of the Sun: Australian fairy tales for the 21st century’ which are strictly for grown ups! Maxine Beneba Clarke’s poetry is both funny and alarming. Her collection, ‘How Decent Folk Behave’ shows the power of poetry in addressing contemporary issues; the treatment of women, the moral corruption of politics, and the challenge to find a social bala...

Second time around, Evie is reliving her 20’s, will she find the love she is looking for and the career she wants? Ali Berg and Michelle Kalus join together to make the romantic comedy ‘Fancy Meeting You Here’ twice as funny. Chris Hammer takes us to an isolated outback opal mining region for his latest murder mystery, ‘Treasure and Dirt’, where the intrigue is as deep and dangerous as a mine shaf...

Not all crime novels have to have serial killers or gore. ‘Who sleuthed it?’ is a light hearted and fun read with animals helping to solve crimes. These short stories are by 19 different writers from many countries and edited by Lindy Cameron. Eugen Bacon’s collection of speculative short story fiction, ‘Danged Black Thing’, transports us into other times and other realities but her delight with c...

'The Colonial’s Son' is historical fiction from the Palmer River goldfields to the political power play of Europe, Peter Watt writes of the fighting by bushrangers or armies to achieve their ambitions. In ‘Dark Rise’, C. S. Pacat creates a fantasy world where there is an ambiguity between good and evil – the light and the dark. Nothing is what it seems. 

A step-mother, younger than the groom’s daughters, creates uncertainty in the family with secrets and lies being revealed. Sally Hepworth has written another page-turner in ‘The Younger Wife’ which starts with the wedding and a murder. Katherine Kovacic adapts the Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries television series for the page fleshing out the character of Peregrine Fisher as the young 60’s sle...

An oldie but a goodie! A relevant read about everyday violence, the media's obsession with pretty dead girls and the search for answers in a country town community.

Hannah Kent ‘s book ‘Devotion’ in part tells how devout Lutherans emigrated to South Australia but more so about two young woman in the group who find friendship and committed love that follows them beyond the grave. The vast desolate openness of central Australia is the perfect setting for murder – no one can hear you scream. Margaret Hickey utilizes this landscape in ‘Cutters End’ as the setting...

A young man runs from Melbourne into the excesses of capitalism in New York and again into the rural heartland of Ohio . Will he find what he is looking for in Emily Bitto’s novel, 'Wild Abandon'. Mirranda Burton has written/illustrated a graphic novel entitled, ‘Underground’ that provides an insight into Australia’s growing resistance to the Vietnam War including a wombat that was drafted and who...

The best of creativity and compassion and the worst of unchecked greed and entitlement are in ‘The Eighth Wonder’, a historical fiction set in the Gilded Age of New York by Tania FarrellyAntoni Jach, in his latest work, ‘Travelling Companions’ demonstrates that travelling is more about the journey than the destination as well as the people you meet along the way.

Erin’s teenage friends were charged with a horrific murder. 16 years later and as a crime writer, she gets to investigate it herself, in ‘I Shot the Devil’ by Ruth McIver. Ann Rennie’s, ‘Blessed’, is a collection of reflections about the simple things in life that are, in their own way, keys to more profound thinking.

Jacquie Byron has created a feisty 65 year old woman, getting older but perhaps not wiser. Friends had become unwelcome in her seclusion until circumstances, being the new neighbours, breach her fortress and heart in the humorous ‘Happy Hour’.J P Pomare explores the psychological intrigues made possible by the voyeuristic capabilities of the digital age in his new book, ‘The Last Guests’, where yo...

Kate Ryan takes the reader back and forth in ‘The Golden Book’ from a childhood friendship and devastating accident to adult acceptance of blame and learning about the nature of fear and love. Robert Gott continues his 1940s Melbourne based detective murder mystery series with ‘The Orchard Murders’ where obsession and religious fanaticism come to the fore.

When family stories are not told or things go unsaid between mothers and daughters or a relationship ends, there is a little death. The grief is played out in many ways through the short stories by Paige Clark in  ‘She is Haunted’.Gabrielle Williams crosses both time and continents in her riff on a ‘freaky Friday’ type transfer of souls in her adolescent novel, ‘It’s Not You, It’s Me’.

Three generations are looking for inspiration and guidance to find out how to love and live. From the India ashram in the 70’s to closed societies of the future, the outcomes for these three generations, lead to very different consequences. Miles Allinson looks into the past and future in his novel ‘In Moonland’.Stephen Orr blurs the line between fact and fiction in his account of the great Austra...

Grandmothers may live on the periphery of a family’s life but when Shirley and Beth suspect their grand daughter is being abused they abduct her with much interest from police, media and of course their family in The Unusual Abduction of Avery Conifer by Ilsa Evans. Sara El Sayed’s memoir, ‘Muddy People’, is more than just an account of a young Egyptian Muslim girl negotiating cultures. The pressu...

Poland in 1939, with the background of anti-semitism and the imminent Nazi invasion, Maria is absorbed in finding the whereabouts of her mother in  ‘Secrets my father kept’ by Rachel Givney. Against the tide of communism and nuclear devastation that followed World War Two, individuals find a simple, common good that gives them comfort. The Quaker, Wes, finds happiness with the socialist, Beth, and...

In the middle of a heatwave in Brisbane, a son disappears. This causes a family to reconnect, share their secrets, surprisingly make new friendships and investigate their skills, be it art or disappearing, in ‘The Rabbits’ by Sophie Overett.              Told in the voice of an eleven year old boy, Mark Brandi’s, ‘The Others’, provides an insight into a child’s coming of age against a backdrop of...

Japanese life is steeped in traditions, but four interconnected characters tell of how a different life can be lived in ‘The Shut Ins’ by Katherine Brabon. Charlie Donlea uses the Twin Towers collapse as the source of a cold case that must be solved in ‘Twenty Years Later’ but there is still intrigue in the present day. The FBI spy on the investigative journalist whose past could be embarrassing i...

Things are falling apart: the lake is drying up, the town is changing and who you are in a marriage and a broader family is under scrutiny, in ‘Echolalia’ by Briohny Doyle. Tania Chandler exposes the fractures in social behaviour that lead her protagonist, Sidney, to question her own mental stability. The novel, ‘All That I Remember About Dean Cola’ creates a complex scenario where memory and emot...