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Love Objects (Emily Maguire, A&U)
Released April 2021
Pop culture representations of hoarding tend to paint a picture of unrestrained excess. Perhaps this is why, when Emily Maguire introduces Nic, a 45-year-old who loves her job at the... Read more
Tussaud (Belinda Lyons-Lee, Transit Lounge)
Released April 2021
Madame Tussaud is synonymous with wax figures of the famous and infamous and also with the uncanny-valley discomfort that such figures evoke. This book takes the documented strange life of... Read more
Huda and Me (H Hayek, A&U)
Released April 2021
When their parents make a sudden trip back to their home country of Lebanon, Huda and Akeal find themselves left with their fellow siblings under the care of a family... Read more
Paws (Kate Foster, Walker Books)
Released April 2021
Kate Foster is a literary agent and now, with her middle-grade novel Paws, a published children’s author. Eleven-year-old Alex loves dogs, sketching and computer games. But he doesn’t have any... Read more
Wonder Earth (Zanni Louise & Tiff Bollhorn, illus by Sophy Louise Smith, Five Mile)
Released April 2021
Wonder Earth is a slightly strange hybrid of science reference and imaginative meditation. The authors set out to help children connect with the Earth at both an emotional and a... Read more
Car Crash: A Memoir (Lech Blaine, Black Inc.)
Released April 2021
In 2009, 17-year-old Lech Blaine and six of his friends were driving home together in Toowoomba. The driver swerved and was hit by an oncoming car. Blaine, who was sitting... Read more
Smokehouse (Melissa Manning, UQP)
Released April 2021
Melissa Manning’s debut short story collection is an evocative and sometimes heartbreaking exploration of family, home and what it takes to build a fulfilling life. Bookended by two longer works... Read more
Like Mother (Cassandra Austin, Hamish Hamilton)
Released April 2021
It’s 1969 in small-town Australia and new mother Louise can barely leave her own house or step beyond the shadow of her controlling mother, Gladys. With a constantly crying baby,... Read more
The Edge of Thirteen (Nova Weetman, UQP)
Released March 2021
The Edge of Thirteen is the latest offering by acclaimed middle-grade author Nova Weetman. Following the characters from Weetman's 'The Secrets We Keep' series, yet working as a standalone story,... Read more
New Animal (Ella Baxter, A&U)
Released March 2021
Amelia is numb. Ever since a heartbreaking event a year ago, unable to let go of the tragedy, she finds herself stuck in place. Struggling to find connection, she absorbs... Read more
Return to Uluru (Mark McKenna, Black Inc.)
Released March 2021
‘Perspective is everything,’ writes historian Mark McKenna in Return to Uluru, his mesmeric history–true crime hybrid. When starting the book, McKenna expected to tell an expansive history of central Australia,... Read more
The Believer (Sarah Krasnostein, Text)
Released March 2021
The people who populate The Believer are remarkably different from one another. There are, among others, a convicted murderer, a ‘death doula’, paranormal investigators, and Christian researchers who have dedicated... Read more
9 Things to Remember (and one to forget) (Alison Binks, Berbay)
Released March 2021
This picture book opens with a girl relaxing on a hammock somewhere in the forest, along with the words, ‘If you sleep outside remember that birds wake up very early... Read more
My Year of Living Vulnerably (Rick Morton, Fourth Estate)
Released March 2021
Anyone who enjoyed Rick Morton’s memoir One Hundred Years of Dirt will want to read My Year of Living Vulnerably. Under a disparate set of headings—The Self, Forgiveness, Animals, Touch,... Read more
Rajah Street (Myo Yim, Walker Books)
Released March 2021
In this sunny picture book, three-year-old Junya watches the world outside his window as he waits hopefully for the arrival of one of his most favourite things ever: the garbage... Read more
Dropbear (Evelyn Araluen, UQP)
Released March 2021
When I was in primary school, on the occasion that foreign travellers or tourists would come to visit, our conversation would inevitably turn to Australia's famous fauna and flora—to snakes... Read more
Hold Your Fire (Chloe Wilson, Scribner)
Released March 2021
Hold Your Fire is the incisive and darkly funny fiction debut by Melbourne poet Chloe Wilson, author of Not Fox Nor Axe and The Mermaid Problem. The 17 stories in... Read more
The Breaking (Irma Gold, MidnightSun)
Released March 2021
When Hannah meets fellow Australian traveller Deven in the lobby of a hostel in Thailand, her trip quickly gains a sense of purpose. Hannah’s drawn to the fiery, charismatic Deven... Read more
Waking Romeo (Kathryn Barker, A&U)
Released March 2021
Waking Romeo is a stunning reimagining of the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet—meets Wuthering Heights, meets epic time-travelling extravaganza. The main story revolves around Juliet and a group of... Read more
The Gaps (Leanne Hall, Text)
Released March 2021
The fourth novel by 2009 Text Prize winner Leanne Hall is simultaneously harrowing and enchanting. The Gaps begins as abruptly as a slap, with a newscast declaring schoolgirl Yin Mitchell... Read more
