The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang Allen & Unwin When Helen Hoang’s pre-school teacher suggested that her daughter might have high functioning autism or Asperger’s Syndrome, Helen did some research. She found that there is are major differences between the condition in females as they mask their awkwardness and hide their autistic traits to become […]
The House on Half Moon Street by Alex Reeve Raven Books In 1880, Victorian London was full of desperate characters that profited from other people’s weaknesses. It was a terrible time for most women and there is no way to romanticize the exploitation and the conditions in which the majority of the population struggled to […]
Bluebottle by Belinda Castles Allen & Unwin “After midnight the heat swelled in the house on the cliff while the cool surf pounded below.” Set on Sydney’s Northern beaches, sixteen year-old Lou, fifteen year-old Jack and younger sister Phoebe live in a house overlooking the sea with their parents Charlie and Tricia. Although the novel […]
Big Rough Stones by Margaret Merrilees Wakefield Press Reading Margaret Merrilees’ latest novel is a bit like doing a jigsaw. The narrative is littered with lesbians who all connect in some way. Poet Miriel Lenore says at the beginning of the book that to build a lesbian wall, you need big rough stones. Some bits […]
The House of Impossible Beauties by Joseph Cassara ONEWORLD When Blondie and Diana Ross were pumping on the radio, Angel was 16 years old and they realised they were a she. She didn’t need to actually be a woman to have the air of a woman and the sass of Bette Davis, and when she […]
White Houses by Amy Bloom Allen & Unwin Although Amy Bloom states that she worked from books by actual historians, the creative writing professor declares her book a work of fiction, from beginning to end. There are certainly numerous facts to work from. Franklin Roosevelt occupied the White House for a record four terms – […]
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi Allen & Unwin Ada was born in Nigeria where her mother Saachi was a nurse and her father Saul a doctor. Author Akwaeke Emezi, who was also born in Nigeria, inhabits Ada as she goes from foetus through the birth process and then as she grows up. Overlaid with Igbo, […]
Munmun by Jesse Andrews Allen & Unwin Imagine a world where physical size is directly proportional to how much money you have. In this Gulliver’s Travels world, the littlepoor are rat-sized and the bigrich are the size of skyscrapers. Difficult to imagine but there is a munmun scale at the front of the book to […]
Little Gods by Jenny Ackland Allen & Unwin Olive Lovelock has just turned twelve. She is an only child but her extended family, where her mother and two sisters seem to have paired up with three brothers, spend a lot of time together on the family farm in north-western Victoria. Olive is “willful, fanciful and […]
The Fortress by SA Jones In world much like our own that has never been affected by the #MeToo campaign, Jonathon Bridge has a good life. He has a top-tier job, a fascinating wife, a child on the way and a string of nubile young women or ‘poodles’ available for sex at his workplace. He […]
