LeaderCorp didn’t care about people. Everything was a transaction to them. If the cost exceeded their benefit, there was no point. The Shining Wall, by Melissa Ferguson, imagines a future dystopia that mashes together all the worst possible scenarios from a deeply humanised perspective – climate change, human destruction (increased radiation levels are mentioned), exploitation […]
Australian Women Writers Challenge
Review: Watershed, by Jane Abbott
The brutality of climate change has destroyed civilisation as we know it in Watershed‘s dystopian future. The seas have risen and the last time it rained on land was decades ago. Catastrophic weather patterns have rendered all forms of advanced technology useless. For a long time, anarchy reigned. In the Citadel, the Tower has built […]
Teens, drugs and dementia – Love And Other Battles, by Tess Woods
I picked up Love and Other Battles, by Tess Woods because I’d heard others rave about it, and I’m really glad I did. It’s a wonderfully warm and inspiring story of mothers, daughters and lovers across three generations. It made me laugh and cry and I even learned a thing or two about parenting teenagers. I […]
The French Photographer: female war journalists in World War II
Natasha Lester’s wonderful new novel, The French Photographer, follows the fictional life of Jessica May from 1942 through to the current day. Model turned war photojournalist, Jessica runs up against army men who consider it their job to keep women in their place – behind the front lines. They would prefer she report on food stamps […]
Review: Raising Readers – How to nurture a child’s love of books, by Megan Daley
Raising Readers, by Megan Daley, is the book I wish I’d been able to read before I had kids. Not because I need tips on how to interest my boys in books – they’re both voracious readers and my youngest takes books to bed as though they’re teddies – but because it would have helped […]
Review: The Aunts’ House, by Elizabeth Stead
The Aunts’ House is a delightful coming of age story set in 1942 Sydney. Author Elizabeth Stead has conjured an ensemble of quirky, lovable characters that would make Charles Dickens envious. Angel Martin is an orphaned child foisted upon long-suffering boarding house mistress, Missus Potts. Enraged upon discovering Angel hasn’t brought the inheritance she’d counted on […]