(courtesy Echo publishing) When you are consumed by anxiety, the kind that eats you alive in endlessly exhausting ways and turns even the simplest of moments into existential hell, can there even be room for love? That’s the question that consumes lifelong friends Kelly O’Mara and Finn aka Finely Walsh,protagonists Continue Reading
Books
CHRISTMAS PREVIEW: The vivaciously funny festive joy of Christmas Karma
(courtesy First Showing) SNAPSHOTAn early Xmas gift… Christmas Karma sees ones of the greatest novels – Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol – transformed into a joyous, colourful, feel-good Christmas musical that celebrates modern-day London and all of its communities and cultures. Told from Chadha’s unique point of view and in Continue Reading
Frankenstein with a delightful twist … trailer drops for adaptation of beloved book series (and graphic novel), Stitch Head
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTHigh above the little town of Grubbers Nubbin, in a castle laboratory, the maddest of all mad professors brings monstrous creations to (almost) life… and then promptly forgets all about them. So, who runs the castle? Who keeps the monsters in line, so the townsfolk don’t form Continue Reading
Book review: The Expert System’s Brother by Adrian Tchaikovsky
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) World-building is everything when it comes to science fiction aka sci-fi and one writer who absolutely excels in this department is Adrian Tchaikovsky, who stands as one of the genre’s most talented writers of the moment. His ability to conjure up a sense of a plant Continue Reading
CHRISTMAS PREVIEW: The Secret Mistletoe Promise (The Secret Bookshop, Book 2) by Cressida McLaughlin
(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers) SNAPSHOTIs a new beginning waiting for her this Christmas? When Imogen leaves her fiancé at the altar and escapes to her grandmother’s cottage by the sea, the only thing she wants to do is disappear. But in a village curious about their new arrival, Imogen finds Continue Reading
Book review: Tenderfoot by Toni Jordan
(courtesy IMP Awards) We all know growing up is tough. But for some people growing up is even tougher, with a bewildering array of issues to navigate and circumstances to survive, and no real emotional support to get through it all. Just how daunting it can be is explored with Continue Reading
Book review: Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) I know you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover; but what its title? What if it’s so quirky and full of promise with a tagline that says “The hardest murder to solve is your own”? Well then you scoop it up, head Continue Reading
Book review: Terms of Service by Ciel Pierlot
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) ARC courtesy Angry Robot Books – release date 23 September 2025 in UK and 28 October 2025 in Australia. One of the things I love about reading sci-fi/fantasy is endlessly and imaginatively expansive it can be. You could likely say that about any genre, but there’s Continue Reading
Book review: The Wolf Who Cried Boy by Mark Mupotsa-Russell
(courtesy Affirm Press) The world is full, sagely observes a quote lifted onto the back cover of The Wolf Who Cried Boy by Mark Mupotsa-Russell, of magic and monsters. Those words simultaneously delight and terrify, and they capture the brilliantly evocative duality of this novel which takes you into the Continue Reading
The art and fun of Wallace the Brave: Watch creator Will Henry bring a Sunday strip to playfully colourful life
(courtesy official Will Henry Twitter/X account (c) Will Henry/Go Comics) Wallace the Brave, which flows from the imaginatively whimsical hand of Will Henry, is of those unicorn comic strips that has it all. Set in the archetypal New England town of Snug Harbor [sic], the strip follows the adventures of Continue Reading