About the Book: Norway, 1662. A dangerous time to be a woman, when even dancing can lead to accusations of witchcraft. When Zigri, desperate and grieving after the loss of her husband and son, embarks on an affair with the local merchant, it's not long before she is sent to the fortress at Vardo, to … Continue reading Book Review: The Witches of Vardo by Anya Bergman
History
Book Review: Return to Valetto by Dominic Smith
About the Book: A nearly abandoned Italian village, the family that stayed, and long-buried secrets from World War II. On a hilltop in Umbria sits Valetto. Once a thriving village-and a hub of resistance and refuge during World War II-centuries of earthquakes, landslides and the lure of a better life have left it neglected. Only … Continue reading Book Review: Return to Valetto by Dominic Smith
Book Review: A Country of Eternal Light by Paul Dalgarno
About the Book: An astonishingly inventive, playful, witty, poignant and deeply moving novel from one of Australia's most exciting writers. Margaret Bryce, deceased mother of twins, has been having a hard time since dying in 2014. These days she spends time with her daughters – Eva in Madrid, and Rachel and her family in Melbourne … Continue reading Book Review: A Country of Eternal Light by Paul Dalgarno
Book Review: All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien
About the Book: There were a dozen witnesses to Denny Tran’s brutal murder in a busy Sydney restaurant. So how come no one saw anything? ‘Just let him go.’ Those are words Ky Tran will forever regret. The words she spoke when her parents called to ask if they should let her younger brother Denny … Continue reading Book Review: All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien
Book Review: Joan by Katherine J. Chen
About the Book: Girl. Warrior. Heretic. Saint? France is mired in a losing war against England. Its people are starving. Its king is in hiding. Yet out of the chaos, an unlikely heroine emerges. Reckless, steel-willed and brilliant, Joan has survived a childhood steeped in both joy and violence to claim an extraordinary - and … Continue reading Book Review: Joan by Katherine J. Chen
Book Review: The Dictator’s Wife by Freya Berry
About the Book: A dictator's wife, overthrown and awaiting trial, pleads her case to a young female lawyer, while also drawing her into a tangled web of lies and dark, dangerous secrets. This dazzling and devastating debut is a Lead Launch for Headline Review for Spring 2021. WOMAN I learned early in life how to … Continue reading Book Review: The Dictator’s Wife by Freya Berry
Book Review: The Islands by Emily Brugman
About the Book: In the mid-1950s, a small group of Finnish migrants set up camp on Little Rat, a tiny island in an archipelago off the coast of Western Australia. The crayfishing industry is in its infancy, and the islands, haunted though they are by past shipwrecks, possess an indefinable allure. Drawn here by tragedy, … Continue reading Book Review: The Islands by Emily Brugman
Book Review: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
About the Book: In this stunning and timely novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage and of a woman's relentless errors. Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the … Continue reading Book Review: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Book Review: Flight of the Budgerigar by Penny Olsen
About the Book: The Budgerigar is arguably Australia’s best-known bird. At the same time, it is so ubiquitous that not everyone knows that it is Australian. Nor do many realise that the multicoloured bird that comes to mind—not to mention today’s super-sized, extravagantly coiffed show budgie—is as different from the free-living original as a chihuahua … Continue reading Book Review: Flight of the Budgerigar by Penny Olsen
The Silence of the Girls and The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
The Silence of the Girls: The greatest war story in literature, retold by our greatest living storyteller on war - in the voice of the forgotten woman who lived through it. Queen Briseis has been stolen from her conquered homeland and given as a concubine to a foreign warrior. The warrior is Achilles: famed hero, … Continue reading The Silence of the Girls and The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
Theresa Smith Writes 