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 […]
literary fiction
Review: Improvement, by Joan Silber – novel or linked short stories?
I really enjoyed Improvement, by Joan Silber. The writing is gorgeous, the characters are simultaneously unusual and everyday, and Silber’s tracking of the way small actions impact lives around the globe and back again is intriguing and masterful. But I have a small bone to pick. Improvement is marketed as a ‘novel’. To me, it’s not a […]
Review: Once Upon A River, by Diane Setterfield
I absolutely adored Once Upon a River. Diane Setterfield can really spin a yarn, she has an incredible gift for understated storytelling. Reading this book felt just as though I was sitting by the fire with an ale in the dead of winter, over a hundred years ago. The story opens on a dark midwinter’s […]
Review: Lenny’s Book of Everything, by Karen Foxlee
Lenny’s Book of Everything, by Karen Foxlee, is one of those books you press into your friends’ hands and quietly insist, “Read this.” It’s incredible, uplifting, warmly funny and devastating in equal parts. I loved every character (except the lecherous Mr King). Lenny’s little brother, Davey, is growing too quickly. By the age of six […]
Review: Our Life in the Forest, by Marie Darrieussecq
Our Life in the Forest, by Marie Darrieussecq, is an experimental future dystopian novel for those who loved The End We Start From. A future where the lucky ones have a ‘half’, an identical body lying in storage from which they can harvest spare body parts as needed. Less fortunate humans have a ‘jar’, just […]
How To Be Perfect, rural idealism and time travel – Story Addict Podcast
In this episode of Story Addict I have TWO new releases for you plus one of my all-time favourite speculative fiction novels, The Time Traveller’s Wife. Plus I’ll discuss the question everyone seems to be asking at the moment – have our kids forgotten how to read ‘properly’? Listen to Season 1, Episode 2 Listen here […]