Archive for category: Fiction

Nutshell
Ian McEwan                     

Reviewed by Heather O’Connor

I think I have mentioned before how excited I get when my favourite authors bring out a new book: here we go again! Ian McEwan has surpassed himself this time: the novel is short (200 pages) and can easily be read in one sitting—which I did. The narrator is his youngest ever—in fact, a third-term foetus. He’s described as a modern day Hamlet, who lies helpless in his mother’s womb, listening to her plot to kill her husband, the father … Read more »

Elana Ferrante,  The Neapolitan Novels Text Publishing $22.99 (July 2016) 

There are four books in this series: My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay and The Story of the Lost Child. The publication caused something of a literary sensation and jettisoned the author (who remains anonymous) into international fame. Each book traces a period of time in the lives of two women who maintained a friendship stretching from their childhood days in Napoli. I read the first … Read more »

Sulari Gentill, Gentlemen Formerly Dressed, Pantera Press $22.99 (May 2016) 

In the lead-up to the Sisters in Crime weekend extravaganza in Cobargo and Bermagui (second weekend in October, 2016), I have been seeking out Australian women writers of crime. Sulari Gentill was born in Sri Lanka, but emigrated here at the age of seven, so I’m sure it’s OK to claim her as ours. She trained as a lawyer, (having abandoned her first love, astrophysics), then turned to fiction writing, creating a series of historical crime fiction books. Her hero … Read more »