(courtesy Scribe Publications) Reaching a crossroads point in your life is both liberating and hugely disquieting at the same time. In a Hollywood movie, of course, this pivotal moment of existential decision-making would be rendered as an easily demarcated and simply resolved black-and-white inflection point, but real life rarely comes Continue Reading
Books
Book review: The Great When (A Long London novel) by Alan Moore
(courtesy Bloomsbury Publishing) Let’s be honest – when it’s not being sensationalist or downright scary (and there’s a lot of that right now courtesy of one very large North American country’s new ruler), the real world can be more a little boring. We get on trains when commuting, we get Continue Reading
Book review: The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C. L. Miller
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) Quirky crime all too often gets a bad rap from “serious” crime afficionados. It’s often incorrectly viewed as Crime Lite, and while that might be the case with some of the less well-written members of the sub-genre, the reality is that masterfully written cosy crime, of Continue Reading
Valentine’s Day book review: The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center
(courtesy Hachette Australia) Not all romantic comedies (rom-coms) are created equal. Yes, they all share certain near-inviolable tropes and tick a certain set of boxes that guarantee love will win the day no matter what comes against it, but it’s the deployment of these expected elements that influences whether the Continue Reading
Book review: Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett
(courtesy Hachette Australia) Reading Heather Fawcett’s lustrously beautifully, funny and charming series centred on dryadologist (someone who studies fairies) Emily Wilde is to be transported to a rich world which is lightly escapist and darkly foreboding all at once. Her previous novels in the series, Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries Continue Reading
Book review: The End and Everything Before It by Finegan Kruckemeyer
(courtesy Text Publishing) We are defined and connected by stories. That may seem self-evident but it’s not until you drawn into a poetically rich novel like The End and Everything Before It by Finegan Kruckemeyer that you come to understand, even just a little, how what we are told and Continue Reading
Book review: Can’t Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne
This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2025. Fantasies are often seen as a warm and fun, sometimes a little (or a lot) naughty way to take a step back from everyday life. All the things that normally worry or concern us are put Continue Reading
Mini-mass of movie trailers: Jurassic World Rebirth and The Fantastic Four: First Steps
(via Shutterstock) A new year and a metric ton of new films! While we are currently awash in some very fine arthouse/indie films thanks to the overspill from awards season, which is in full swing, it’ll soon be time for blockbusters and plenty of them. Two that debuted this week Continue Reading
Book review: Ishq and Mushq by Priya Basil
This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2025. In a perfect world, and we all know that’s not where any of us are fortunate to live, you would grow up untroubled, fall in love, make a family of whatever diversity and shape reflected who Continue Reading
Book review: The First Murder on Mars by Sam Wilson
(courtesy Hachette Australia) There’s a lovely, and surprisingly enduring, romantic idea that if you could just take humanity away from its usual surroundings that somehow we’d suddenly morph into thoughtful, more caring and emotionally and intellectually advanced beings. It’s borne from that post-World War Two optimism, now being sadly and Continue Reading