Category: Issue Thirteen

  • Thanks For Having Me: Novel Review

    Thanks For Having Me: Novel Review

    Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Emma Darragh Publisher: Joan (Allen & Unwin) RRP: $32.99 Release Date: 27 February 2024 “If she could help it, this year would be different.” Every now and then, a novel comes along that dares to be different and push conventional structure out the window. Emma Darragh’s debut, Thanks For Having…

  • All The Golden Light: Novel Review

    All The Golden Light: Novel Review

    Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Siobhan O’Brien Publisher: HarperCollins RRP: $32.99 Release Date: 31 January 2024 “A vision projected itself onto the black screen of her memory, and she saw a time when the cottage was tranquil and filled with joy.” How do you find hope, love or chase your dreams when a life you…

  • Good With Money: Non-Fiction Review

    Good With Money: Non-Fiction Review

    Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Emma Edwards Publisher: Allen & Unwin RRP: $34.99 Release Date: 27 February 2024 “Good With Money is a label we all want to wear.” Are you in complete control of your finances? Do you struggle to break old and bad financial habits? Emma Edwards, founder of The Broke Generation, wants…

  • A Dance With Murder: Novel Review

    A Dance With Murder: Novel Review

    Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Elizabeth Coleman Publisher: Pantera Press RRP: $32.99 Release Date: 3 January 2024 “Ted looked down at her miniature schnauzer, Miss Marple, who was sprawled at her feet, and she could’ve sworn she saw her eyes roll.” What do a private investigator, a miniature schnauzer called Miss Marple, a ballerina, a…

  • Past Lives

    Past Lives

    Review by Jilliean Sioson   Directed by Celine Song | English-Korean There is a conversation that takes place in Men Without Women (2014) written by Haruki Murakami that goes like this: “But Mr. Kafuku, can any of us ever perfectly understand another person? However much we may love them?” “We lived together for nearly twenty…

  • Sanctuary: Novel Review

    Sanctuary: Novel Review

    Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Garry Disher Publisher: Text Publishing RRP: $32.99 Release Date: 3 April 2024 “Found the bitch” A rural antiques store is not where you would normally expect to see an Australian crime-thriller set. Yet, in Australian crime writer Garry Disher’s latest stand-alone novel, Sanctuary, his protagonist finds a safe place in…

  • The Next Big Thing: Novel Review

    The Next Big Thing: Novel Review

    Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: James Colley Publisher: Pantera Press RRP: $32.99 Release Date: 30 January 2024 “Norm has just had a big idea. The biggest idea of his life, in fact. Norm is not used to having ideas, particularly not big ones.” If you could build a Big Thing in your town, what would…

  • Run For Your Life: Non-Fiction Review

    Run For Your Life: Non-Fiction Review

    Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Sue Williams Publisher: Simon & Schuster RRP: $32.99 Release Date: 3 April 2024 “On a rugged beach of fiery red sand, shark-infested waters and patrolling crocodiles somewhere in the remote reaches of Australia’s far northwest, a little family are fighting the battle of their lives.” Would you go into hiding…

  • Here After: Non-Fiction Review

    Here After: Non-Fiction Review

    Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Amy Lin Publisher: Zibby Books RRP: $34.99 Release Date: 1 July 2024   “When he dies, I fall out of time.” Canadian author Amy Lin’s memoir, Here After, is a beautiful, intimate and heartbreaking insight into the disorienting chaos of processing grief after the sudden loss of a loved one.…

  • Kit McBride Gets A Wife: Novel Review

    Kit McBride Gets A Wife: Novel Review

    Review by Stacey O’Carroll Author: Amy Barry Publisher: Simon & Schuster RRP: $22.99 Release Date: 3 April 2024 “Well, spit. How was Junebug to know flour was flammable?” Teenage Junebug McBride has had enough of cooking and cleaning for her ungrateful older brothers in the isolated Buck’s Creek, Montana. So, when she is asked to…

  • Boathouse

    Boathouse

    By Jan Wiezorek I see now that mystery chops at water. I see now those fractal oars in the sky. I cannot see fear on my face, but I feel flint move like slow motion. I could skip along this path of stones and trip right into a rite of terror—slipping off the pier into…

  • Then and Now

    Then and Now

    by Wendy J. Dunn   JOAN OF ARC (Written at sixteen).   Today I die Today I die I remember when I first heard them in the green meadows of my home,   St Catherine beckoned me, Saint Michael and Saint Margaret told me, ‘Drive the English out, drive them out from France.’ They said…

  • Fly or Swim

    Fly or Swim

    By Jane Frank.   A three-quarter moon is already hanging over the old aerodrome and horse paddocks   but my head is crammed with the sea— it’s sheen—mosaic edge against the island,   though I suppose these lilac-green grasses are their own ocean and clouds of pink-   chested birds are gathering in the concave…

  • Complication

    Complication

    By Jane Frank.    

  • Garry Gets a Gun

    Garry Gets a Gun

    By Les Wicks    

  • We are all wildflowers pressed between transparencies

    We are all wildflowers pressed between transparencies

    By Jane Frank.     Previously published in Wide River (Calanthe Press, 2020).

  • Day Ebbs

    Day Ebbs

    by Wendy J. Dunn  

  • THE SEA

    THE SEA

    by Wendy J. Dunn   The cold wind blows waves crash their might against rocks   I am one with this place.   The sea roars darkness falls as storm clouds shield the sun.   I am one with this place.   A seagull caws over my head   My clothes slap against skin  …

  • Balms

    Balms

    by Les Wicks.    

  • LEIGH SALES IS ‘TOTALLY FINE’.

    LEIGH SALES IS ‘TOTALLY FINE’.

    by Wendy J. Dunn   Sex Birth Leigh Sales is “totally fine”. Sex Birth Come close to death Yoghurt hits the stage   He said she was a bit over the top about this business of giving birth She’s no reason to complain   So why not mansplain the point home By missing her with…