Category: Issue Twelve Reviews
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Serengotti: Novel Review
Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Eugen Bacon Publisher: Transit Lounge RRP: $32.99 Release Date: 1 August 2023 “Normality is gratis, not sacred. One can ignore it but can never fully dispense with it. Subconsciously it may linger, consciously it does not distract.” (Eugen Bacon) Once in a while, a novel comes along that challenges not…
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I’ll Let Myself In: Non-Fiction Review
Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Hannah Diviney Publisher: Allen & Unwin RRP: $32.99 Release Date: 12 September 2023 “My hamstrings and calves are pulled tight, like a bowstring right before you release an arrow. Except there is no arrow. Ever.” (Hannah Diviney) What if an unfortunate accident or medical miscalculation changed the entire course of…
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Blackwater: Novel Review
Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Jacqueline Ross Publisher: AffirmPress RRP: $32.99 Published: 30 May 2023 “Dear House, We are a very bad family and don’t deserve you. Please help us and keep us safe. I am so sorry.” (Jacqueline Ross) How much do you know about the past of the person you share your life…
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When Ghosts Call Us Home: Novel Review
Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Katya De Becerra Publisher: Macmillan RRP: $22.99 Release Date: 26 September 2023 “There’s a split in my head, a demarcation line drawn between my year with Layla at Cashore and everything that came after.” (Katya De Becerra) Sometimes, we need to go back to the place of our nightmares to…
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This Could Be Everything: Novel Review
Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Eva Rice Publisher: Simon & Schuster RRP: $32.99 Release Date: 22 March 2023 “The way through was by moving, by keeping moving, by waking up and stepping onto hard pavements and walking and walking. It felt logical. Movement was a solution of sorts, a way of getting through the days.”…
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Henry VIII’s True Daughter – Catherine Carey, A Tudor Life: Nonfiction Review
Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Wendy J Dunn Publisher Pen & Sword Books RRP: $70.00AU Release Date: 30 November 2023 “Many close to court suspected that Mary Boleyn’s two oldest children were fathered by not her husband but the king.” With multiple books, movies and television shows, one could be forgiven for thinking they…
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Things She Would Have Said Herself: Novel Review
Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Catherine Therese Publisher: Hachette RRP: $32.99 Release Date: 29 March 2023 “There was no greater mystery to Leslie Bird, aside from Sydney real estate, than her own children.” Catherine Therese Look close enough, and every family has a Leslie Bird. What if you said all those wild thoughts and opinions…
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Her Sunburnt Country: Nonfiction Review
Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Deborah FitzGerald Publisher: Simon & Schuster RRP: $55.00 Release Date: 30 August 2023 “I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains. I love her far horizons, I love her jewel-sea, Her beauty and her terror The wide brown land…
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Review: Text Messages from the Universe — Richard James Allen
by Antonia Cassetta Text Messages from the Universe by the remarkable Richard James Allen leads the reader on a mesmerising journey, being weaved between and intertwined with a Buddhist conceptualisation of dying and rebirth. The ethereal photography guides us as we dance within these ephemeral spaces, moving us from one place to another until all…
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Book Review: Periodic Boyfriends
Reviewer: Antonia Cassetta Author: Drew Pisarra The new, viscerally queer poetry collection from Drew Pisarra is a carnal exploration of love and sexuality through a series of encounters laid out across the periodic table. The collection, Periodic Boyfriends, is a delicious mix of feelings, chemicals, queerness, and blood that through sonnets, creates an experience that…
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Bee Miles: Non-Fiction Review.
Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Rose Ellis Publisher: Allen&Unwin RRP: $34.99 Release Date: 29 August 2023 “Bee Miles always maintained that she didn’t want to be known, even though she lived most of her life under a public spotlight.” Rose Ellis Quirky, intelligent and interesting characters litter Australian history, many of whom have faded into…
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Sleepless in Stringybark Bay : Novel Review
Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Susan Duncan Publisher: Allen & Unwin RRP: $32.99 Release Date: 29 August 2023 “Sam shook his head. As far as he could judge, there were three people fit enough to survive a couple of years of boats, storms and offshore living. The others were casualties waiting to happen.” Susan Duncan…
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Writely or Wrongly: Non-Fiction Review
Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Joanne Anderson with Illustrations by Matt Golding Publisher: Murdoch Books RRP: $29.99 Release Date: 3 October 2023 “This book is about playing nicely by current conventions of standard English. It contains myth-dismantling, a dash of historical context, a writing tip here and there, and a confusion-removal service.” (Joanne Anderson) Do…