Published...Or Not

‘The Last Egg’ is a picture story book by Sofie Laguna. It is about love, kindness and loyalty with a fantastical end. Lili Wilkinson has Titch the mouse on an epic journey of magic, heroism and loyal friendship in ‘Bravepaw and the Clawstone of Rotwood Mire’‘Music Camp’ by Penny Tangey is a big hearted story about finding your way when you’re twelve. These primary school nerds have music in commo...

 A much loved daughter could ruin a family and just what is it, that this family have to hide? Anna Snoekstra has written a very well crafted mystery in ‘The Ones We Love’. Robbie Coburn's verse narrative, 'The Foal in the Wire', is a coming of age tale about survival and the bonds between individuals that both undermine and affirm. 

Audrey has left her husband and career in advertising. Now she bakes cakes and fortune cookies that tell the bitter truth, but can she start a business with her motley lot of new friends in Catherine Greer’s ‘The Bitter Sweet Bakery Café’. 

A grandson tries to learn a family story in Andre Dao’s ‘Anam’.                         Murder and mayhem on the waterfront, marihuana cigarettes and a turf war over brothels, thankfully the Tea Ladies can solve crimes and cement friendships in this, the third book of the series, ‘The Deadly Dispute’ by Amanda Hampson. 

 He wants to be a successful and acclaimed writer. He wants to know all the truths and write her biography even if it requires deceit.  Dominic Amerena has written this crafty book about literary theft in ‘I want Everything’. Mystery surrounds a new pandemic that takes the lives of those reaching their ninth birthday in Chris Flynn's, ‘Orpehus Nine’. The resulting conspiracy theories, riots, funda...

 The bond of friendship can unravel when doubt and superstition start to take hold. And the spiritual comfort we seek in such circumstances can also lead to our undoing. Christine Keighery delves into these notions in her novel, 'We're Not Us Without You'.The gold rush made the city of Melbourne rich but women’s lives and choices were still very limited.  Madeleine Cleary has written a historical...

‘Salty, Spiced and a Little Bit Nice’ has Ellie a type 1 diabetic wanting independence from her controlling family but not wanting to be hurt again by her teenage crush in this romantic comedy by Cynthia Timoti.  Gregory Day's anthology of poetry, Southsightedness, connects creativity, the landscape and the artist as a collective whole in verse that is imaginative and unique.   

Food blogger, Chloe, is competing for an interview with a famous chef in Victoria Brownlee's novel, 'Eat Your Heart Out'.Doctor Hannah Wright must balance her personal and professional life as she treats psychiatric patients at the Menzies Hospital in the latest novel, The Glass House, by Anne Buist and Graeme Simsion.

By Her Hand is Marion Taffe's debut novel where the protagonist must write her rage to win her war. Laura McCluskey takes us to an isolated island off the west coast of Scotland where superstition and resistance hamper a murder investigation in her debut novel, The Wolf Tree.

Peter Norris writes about his upbringing with his career criminal father who was a bank robber and jail escapee in the memoir, The Bank Robbers Boy. Kate Grenville talks about her latest work, Unsettled.

A cicada leaves a shell of its former self behind suggesting a past life and this notion is played upon in Ella Ward's novel, The Cicada House.

Kate Solly has written a cosy crime book ‘The Paradise Heights Craft Store Stitch Up’.Family saga mixes with macabre happenings in ‘First Name Second Name’ Steve MinOn has a dead man walking back through four generations of family history to recover his lost identity. 

Her Gramps has dementia and it is through a time slip that Charlotte relives the moon landing and brings sparks of awareness and her own empathy to him and others in the aged care facility, in Anna Ciddor’s ‘Moonboy’.Several months after her father's death, Belinda Probert discovers that his name is actually Roy. She outlines the journey of discovery that followed in her book, ‘Bill's Secrets - cl...

Alice and Teddy are two women on the fringes of criminality who begin to realize they are implicated in drug running and murder in Fiona Hardy's novel, 'Unbury the Dead'.Three people from different generations, backgrounds and work, form an unlikely connection and this friendship alters the course of their lives in Andrea Goldsmith’s ‘The Buried Life’

It is not only communicating with the spirits of the dead that is perplexing for Ellen but her feeling towards one of the other members of the family that make up the church in ‘The Spirit Circle’ by Tara Calaby, an intriguing historical mystery. Geraldine Brooks' memoir, ‘Memorial Days’, addresses the nature of loss and grief as she comes to terms with the unexpected death of her husband, Tony Ho...

Jennifer Wolfe thinks she is fighting just for her family but her survival and the truths she could reveal could bring down a dictatorship. She becomes ‘The Hunted’ in Tayla Holborow’s adventure story. ‘The Thrill Of It’ takes us into the malevolent world of a serial killer dispatching old women.  Mandy Beaumont bases her version on real life events in Sydney of the 1990’s.  

Lili Wilkinson's, "Unhallowed Halls', is set on the Scottish moors. It is where dark academia and demons collide.  Should the creative arts be inviolable or should artists use their knowledge for personal gain. This is one of the concepts in Alex Miller's latest novel, The Deal.

The stories and songs coming from a writing course in a women’s prison, brings black humour and a little understanding of these women’s lives and crimes in Valerie Colyer’s ‘Tales that talk to you’Geoff Parkes takes us to the backwater town of Nashville in New Zealand where a Finnish backpacker, Sanna Sorensen, goes missing. The whole town is full of suspects and secrets making the truth hard to e...

Thuy On, once again, explores, language, love and the arts in her latest poetry collection, ‘Essence’.Grace had to contend with grieving parents, conflicted staff and hounded by relentless media for the decision she made at the beach and then the consequences to come to her in this page turning thriller ‘Three Boys Gone’ by Mark Smith.     

‘You Must Remember This’ by Sean Wilson is an eloquent jumble of a family story with a tender portrait of Grace and her slippages of memory with dementia. When a well-meaning community is challenged by the homeless living close by, it is how they act individually and as a group that make this such a wryly humourous and readable fiction. The book is ‘The Campers’ by Maryrose Cuskelly.

Blue Lake by David Sornig is part history, part biography and part personal reflection on a much overlooked part of Melbourne's landscape. Situated to the west of the city lies a tract of land, Dudley Flats, that was once a lagoon but embodies the social, industrial and cultural changes to Melbourne over time. It was a marshland, waste dump, shanty town and shipping centre but is still often overl...

When Captain Cook sailed up the east coast of Australia, he renamed many of the landmarks.  In ‘Warra Warra Wai’ the names and stories of these landmarks are explained as well as how the Indigenous Australians were impacted by this uninvited visitor.  Darren Rix and Craig Cormick have recorded and researched this most interesting book. 

Ghost Cities by Siang Lu is an epic tale. Historical China with paranoid emperors finds a parralel with megalomaniaical film directors in the present day where empires are build on false promises. But Lu's story goes into the very foundation of language and social attitudes where we begin to question the foundations of what we believe and how social truths are formed. And there are real 'ghost cit...

Peter Rose, long time editor of ABR, talks about the recent edition '2024 Books of the Year', with over 40 contributors. David, Lisa and Jan add the books that resonated with them over the year on Published or not, and we alll discuss different aspects of reading, writing and reviewing.

'Thoroughly Disenchanted' is Alexandra Almond's take on a fictional world where magic casts a spell on us all and keeps us in thrall without us even knowing.'The Lost Book of Magic' is the last in a fantasy trilogy for middle grade readers by Amelia Mellor.