(courtesy Hawkeye Publishing) Let’s get one thing clear right from the start – we love literary romantic comedies because, and yes, there will be a lot of this particular word, we love LOVE. Who doesn’t want to read about someone battling insurmountable, wretched circumstances, crash ‘n’ burn existential hell and Continue Reading
Books
Book review: The Lamplighter’s Bookshop by Sophie Austin
(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) Challenging the status quo is never an easy task. Especially when it’s 19th century England, where Victorian propriety of the most suffocating kind rules, at least for those in the upper classes, and where one small step, however intentional or unintentional, can mean social death Continue Reading
Book review: Space Brooms! by A. G. Rodriguez
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) A digital preview copy of Space Brooms! provided by Angry Robot Books in return for an honest and objective review; the novel releases 29 April 2025. When I switched on the phone to read the graciously suppled preview pdf of Space Brooms! by A. G. Rodriguez, Continue Reading
Book review: Time Was by Ian McDonald
(courtesy Macmillan Publishers) When you’re in love, big all-consuming, the world begins and ends with the person before you, the whole experience feels big and epic and expansive as the vast sweep of space. Love is one of those things which defies expectations, stares down limitations and busts all the Continue Reading
Book review: Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) Thanks to the many loud and shouty tentacles of the digital age, it’s usually the case that when something happens to someone, we know about it. Or, at the very least, we have the potential to know about it. Hence, we hear celebrities celebrating their good Continue Reading
Book review: Wild Massive by Scotto Moore
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) Science fiction as a genre is usually not short of big, epic, mind-blowing ideas. Those kinds of ideas, all space operatic, wildly imaginative and fearlessly brave, are the genre’s stock in trade; if you can dream it, sci-fi can make it even better than you dreamt Continue Reading
Book review: The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains by Sarah Clutton
(courtesy Allen & Unwin Australia) Uncorrected proof of The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Bains provided by Allen & Unwin via Better Reading in return for an honest and objective review; the novel releases 29 April 2025. It goes without saying that if a novel is to truly capture your heart, Continue Reading
Break out of your role: Thoughts on Interior Chinatown
(courtesy IMP Awards) How powerful are the stories we tell ourselves, individually and as a society? Pretty damn powerful if Interior Chinatown is to be believed, a streaming show based on Charles Yu’s book of the same name that takes meta (the idea, not the company, thank you) to a Continue Reading
Book review: Death Valley by Melissa Broder
(courtesy Bloomsbury.com) One of the qualities most lauded among people under stress is the ability to go on face of incalculable and often heavily wearing odds. And while resilience in any form is to be admired, what is frequently missed when we are admiringly placing people under great duress on Continue Reading
Book review: Never Ever Forever by Karina May
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) Falling in love is really quite delightful. Stating the obvious there I know, but sometimes when you dive into a rom-com that’s not exactly humming along on all rose-petal fueled cylinders, you could be forgiven for wondering if it’s worth all of the misassumptions, toing-and-froing and Continue Reading