What Am I Reading?
Red Dust Running – Anita Heiss
Is romance the highest selling fiction genre in the world? Yes, it is. And why is that? It’s because there’s nothing readers like more than a good comfort read, some hilarious rom-com, and a dash of loving. Author Anita Heiss knows this as well as anyone, and while...
Ghost Cities – Siang Lu
From the inventive and intellectual imagination of author Siang Lu comes the extraordinary novel GHOST CITIES (UQP 2024), a dichotomous tale of ancient China and a contemporary abandoned (or ghost city) set in modern-day China. Two very different stories that...
Out of the Woods – Gretchen Shirm
In OUT OF THE WOODS (Transit Lounge 2025), author Gretchen Shirm presents a well-researched, shocking, thought-provoking literary novel that explores the atrocities of genocide from the intimate perspective of a woman working at a trial at the Hague. Set in 2000,...
Vessel – Dani Netherclift
Vessel (Upswell 2024) by Dani Netherclift is a lyrical, poetic remembering and reimagining of the drownings of the author’s father and brother in an irrigation channel when she was 18 years old. Netherclift asserts she writes a ‘lyrical essay’ (a term I adore and...
First Name Second Name – Steve MinOn
Steve MinOn’s debut FIRST NAME SECOND NAME (UQP 2025) is part literary fiction, part autofiction, part literary horror, part coming of age story, part historical fiction. MinOn gathers together these many strands of writerly straw and spins them into a single gold...
The Ledge – Christian White
The Ledge (Affirm Press 2024) is another outstanding crime thriller by the multi-talented Christian White. Known as the master of the twist (the reveal in his book The Wife and The Widow is still my all-time favourite), White’s work encompasses film, TV and novels....
The Burrow – Melanie Cheng
Melanie Cheng’s third book THE BURROW (Text Publishing 2024) was on my TBR list but rapidly moved up when it was recently longlisted for the 2025 Stella Prize. This slim novel packs a punch of emotional intensity. Cheng’s second novel (her first publication was a...
17 Years Later – JP Pomare
JP Pomare’s latest crime thriller 17 YEARS LATER is his best yet. Layered, complex and well-crafted, with compelling characters and an intriguing plot, 17 YEARS LATER – Who Really Killed The Primrose Family? (Hachette 2024) demonstrates Pomare at the height of his...
Groomed – Sonia Orchard
Author Sonia Orchard dedicates her book GROOMED: A memoir about abuse, the search for justice and how we fail to keep our children safe (Affirm Press 2025) to: ‘… my Mum and my girls, and for carers, children and survivors everywhere’. This arresting title and cover –...
Dark As Last Night – Tony Birch
In true Tony Birch style, DARK AS LAST NIGHT (UQP 2021) explores themes of (toxic) masculinity, class (particularly the working class), poverty, violence and race. This collection of short stories especially focuses on semi-autobiographical stories in honour of...
Women and Children – Tony Birch
Tony Birch’s novel Women and Children (UQP 2023) is a powerful portrait of a family beset by intergenerational trauma, abuse and family violence, penned by one of Australia’s greatest living writers, an author who leaves us with characters that feel like real people...
You Must Remember This – Sean Wilson
Sean Wilson’s second novel, YOU MUST REMEMBER THIS (Affirm Press 2025) is a slim, hardback, literary meditation on aging, memory and family. Very different to his first novel (a remarkable historical crime thriller), it is nevertheless written in the same beautiful,...