Review search
Aussie STEM Stars: Fiona Wood (Cristy Burne, Wild Dingo Press)
Released October 2020
‘Aussie STEM Stars’ is an exciting new narrative nonfiction series that celebrates experts in the fields of science, maths, engineering and technology. Book one centres on the story of Fiona... Read more
Loss Adjustment (Linda Collins, Awa Press)
Released October 2020
The unimaginable horror of losing a beloved only child to suicide concentrated Linda Collins’ mind, producing this extraordinary book. The pain of her loss suffuses every page, but she writes... Read more
All Our Shimmering Skies (Trent Dalton, HarperCollins)
Released October 2020
Backdropped by the 1942 bombing of Darwin, Trent Dalton’s All Our Shimmering Skies is a macabre, dreamlike fable interrogating greed and intergenerational trauma. At the age of seven, gravedigger girl... Read more
Piper Picks the Perfect Pet (Caroline Tuohey, illus by Nicky Johnston, Ford St)
Released October 2020
From the alliterative title alone, you know this picture book must be read out loud to the little ones. Piper Picks the Perfect Pet even rhymes, which will add to... Read more
This One is Ours (Kate O’Donnell, UQP)
Released October 2020
In her second novel, Kate O’Donnell, author of Untidy Towns, delivers an insightful and earnest coming-of-age story brimming with humanity. This One is Ours takes readers on a romantic overseas... Read more
It’s Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake (Claire Christian, Text)
Released October 2020
Claire Christian’s first adult novel is billed as a contemporary romantic comedy and while there is a delicious romance plot, the true love story is between the eponymous protagonist and... Read more
Soar: A life freed by dance (David McAllister, Thames & Hudson)
Released October 2020
As both a star principal dancer and tenured artistic director, David McAllister is a reliable chronicler of Australia’s recent ballet history. In his memoir Soar, McAllister records his early years... Read more
Bindi (Kirli Saunders, illus by Dub Leffler, Magabala)
Released October 2020
Multi–award winning author and poet Kirli Saunders turns her talent to junior fiction with this wonderfully engaging verse novel, which won the inaugural WA Premier’s Daisy Utemorrah Award. Eleven-year-old Bindi... Read more
Wolfred (Nick Bland, Hardie Grant Egmont)
Released October 2020
Toddlers and preschoolers will enjoy the engaging rhymes, quirky illustration and straightforward messaging of this new tale from popular picture book author Nick Bland. When aspiring writer Wolfred McFlea is... Read more
Just Money: Misadventures in the great Australian debt trap (Royce Kurmelovs, UQP)
Released September 2020
Just Money opens with a first-person account of the car crash that left author and journalist Royce Kurmelovs $23,000 in debt. Kurmelovs’ subsequent experience with the opaque mechanisms of debt... Read more
The Tunnel of Dreams (Bernard Beckett, Text)
Released October 2020
The Tunnel of Dreams is a charmingly breezy middle fiction fantasy novel about identical twins Arlo and Stefan, and their adventure in a parallel, magic-filled world. Author Bernard Beckett wastes... Read more
Death Leaves the Station (Alexander Thorpe, Fremantle Press)
Released October 2020
In 1927 at Halfwell Station in regional WA, the station owner’s daughter, Ana, discovers a body in the nearby desert. At around the same time, a nameless friar arrives at... Read more
Indigo Owl (Charlie Archbold, Wakefield)
Released September 2020
Scarlet, Dylan and Rumi are new students at the Arcadia Institute, where they will receive the training required to turn them into good citizens of the corpocratic planet Galbraith. But... Read more
Poly (Paul Dalgarno, Ventura)
Released September 2020
Spouses Chris and Sarah are trying something new—after years without sex, but still in love and keen to remain a family unit, they’ve agreed to see other people. The confident,... Read more
Tricky Nick (Nicholas J Johnson, illus by Russell Jeffery, Pan)
Released September 2020
I’m usually suspicious of books written by performers, celebrities or adult writers turning to children’s fiction, but Tricky Nick won me over in the first 20 pages. Magician-turned-author Nicholas J... Read more
The History of Mischief (Rebecca Higgie, Fremantle Press)
Released September 2020
The History of Mischief is an exploration of family, grief and the power of stories, with a pseudo-historical twist. Nine-year-old Jessie is struggling with the loss of her parents and... Read more
Show Me Where It Hurts: Living with invisible illness (Kylie Maslen, Text)
Released September 2020
Imagine living with an invisible illness. For 20 years, Kylie Maslen has been doing just that: her chronic pain and bipolar II (the latter undiagnosed until she was 35) have... Read more
The Fire Star (A L Tait, Penguin)
Released September 2020
Maven is a servant girl doomed to a life of servitude and forced to hide how sharp-minded she really is. Reeve is a squire with dreams of becoming a knight... Read more
Dreams They Forgot (Emma Ashmere, Wakefield)
Released September 2020
The tagline on the title page of Emma Ashmere’s Dreams They Forgot is ‘stories of illusion, deception and quiet rebellion’. This is an apt description of the 25 stories that... Read more
Windfall: Unlocking a fossil-free future (Ketan Joshi, NewSouth)
Released September 2020
In Windfall: Unlocking a fossil-free future, renewable energy industry insider Ketan Joshi gives a teeth-gnashing account of Australia's interminable climate debates. Working as a data analyst and communicator at Infigen... Read more
