The Things We Never Say
Elizabeth Strout
Penguin, RRP $35.00
Reviewed by Wendy Tucker
I hardly dare to review this new novel by this highly acclaimed and most beloved author with a world-wide devoted readership. This is Strout’s (I want to call her Elizabeth because I feel I know her) eleventh novel and she is again long listed for the 2026 Booker Prize. She won … Read more »
Mantle
Romy Ash
Ultimo Press, RRP $34.99
Review by Wendy Tucker
Romy Ash is a young Australian female author of extraordinary talent. Her first novel, Floundering, published in 2013 was short listed for the Miles Franklin and Commonwealth Book Prizes and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. An amazing accomplishment for a thirty-year-old, first-time author.
Now, thirteen years later she has published her wild, weird, watery and wonderful second novel, Mantle. It is dystopian, Tasmanian gothic … Read more »
The Silver Book
Olivia Laing
Penguin
RRP $36.99
Review by Wendy Tucker
Olivia Laing is a New York critic and the author of eight books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her work has been translated into over 22 languages.
I was unsure about reviewing this fictional account of real things because I thought it might be too narrow in its appeal. Yes, it is set in the audacious … Read more »
Reviewed by Wendy Tucker
Heart the Lover
Lily King
Canongate
RRP$32.99
Heart the Lover has been shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction and Lily King will be a guest at the Sydney Writers Festival. King is the bestselling author of six novels and the winner of several literary prizes. She is well known in the US but was, until now, not as established in Australia. I came to this novel … Read more »
Flesh
by David Szalay
Reviewed by Wendy Tucker
This novel of restrained, realist fiction is the winner of the prestigious and lucrative Booker Prize for 2025. Not unusually, it caused controversy with its extremely pared-back prose that follows the life of one man from adolescence to late middle age.
David Szalay was born in Canada to a Canadian mother and Hungarian father, grew up in London, lived in Hungary and is now based in Vienna. He … Read more »
Garnet
by Jennifer Severn
Vine Leaves Press
Reviewed by Wendy Tucker
Garnet is a new novel by local author Jennifer Severn. It follows her successful memoir, Long Road to Dry River which was shortlisted for the Finch Prize for memoir. An earlier manuscript of Garnet was shortlisted for the Viva la Novella prize and, now that it has been published, Garnet is a finalist for the Wishing Shelf … Read more »