About the Book: Cynthia was just about to turn sixteen when the unthinkable happened. Her mother was taken away by the police, and her father left without a word three months later. After that night, Cynthia began to walk in slow circles outside the family home looking for traces of her sister Mallory - she's … Continue reading Book Review: The Furies by Mandy Beaumont
Literary Fiction
Book Review: Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser
About the Book: Michelle de Kretser's electrifying take on scary monsters turns the novel upside down - just as migration has upended her characters' lives. Lili's family migrated to Australia from Asia when she was a teenager. Now, in the 1980s, she's teaching in the south of France. She makes friends, observes the treatment handed … Continue reading Book Review: Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser
Book Review: The Family by Naomi Krupitsky
About the Book: A captivating debut novel about the tangled fates of two best friends and daughters of the Italian mafia, and a coming-of-age story of twentieth-century Brooklyn itself. Two daughters. Two families. One inescapable fate. Sofia Colicchio is a free spirit, loud and untamed. Antonia Russo is thoughtful, ever observing the world around her. … Continue reading Book Review: The Family by Naomi Krupitsky
Book Review: Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise
About the Book: Find the second star from the right, and fly straight on ’til morning, all the way to Neverland, a children’s paradise with no rules, no adults, only endless adventure and enchanted forests – all led by the charismatic boy who will never grow old. But Wendy Darling grew up. She has a … Continue reading Book Review: Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise
Quick Shots Book Review: Cold Coast by Robyn Mundy
About the Book: Inspired by the story of Svalbard’s first female trapper, Cold Coast is a gripping portrayal of survival within the stark beauty and perilous wilderness of the high Arctic. In 1932, Wanny Woldstad, a young widow, travels to Svalbard, daring to enter the Norwegian trappers’ fiercely guarded male domain. She must prove to … Continue reading Quick Shots Book Review: Cold Coast by Robyn Mundy
Book Review: Water Music by Christine Balint
About the Book: Winner of Viva la Novella IX In eighteenth-century Venice, orphan Lucietta is raised by a fisherman’s family yet supported by a secret benefactor to study music. At 16, she takes up her position at the Derelitti Convent, one of the prestigious musical orphanages for girls, playing the violin in the ensemble and … Continue reading Book Review: Water Music by Christine Balint
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: Devotion by Hannah Kent
About the Book: Prussia, 1836 Hanne Nussbaum is a child of nature - she would rather run wild in the forest than conform to the limitations of womanhood. In her village of Kay, Hanne is friendless and considered an oddity . . . until she meets Thea. Ocean, 1838 The Nussbaums are Old Lutherans, bound … Continue reading Book Review: Devotion by Hannah Kent
Book Review: Believe in Me by Lucy Neave
About the Book: As a teenager in the 1970s, Sarah is forced to leave her home in upstate New York to accompany a missionary to Idaho. When she falls pregnant, she is dispatched to relatives in Sydney, who place her in a home for unmarried mothers. Years later her daughter, Bet, pieces together her mother’s … Continue reading Book Review: Believe in Me by Lucy Neave
Book Review: Wild Abandon by Emily Bitto
About the Book: In the fall of 2011, a heartbroken young man flees Australia for the USA. Landing in the excessive, uncanny-familiar glamour and plenitude of New York City, Will makes a vow to say yes to everything that comes his way. By fate or random chance, Will's journey takes him deep into the American … Continue reading Book Review: Wild Abandon by Emily Bitto
Theresa Smith Writes 