Books

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) “Cosy” is one those words that suggests contentment, peace, of being right with the world and nothing terrible coming to trouble those wrapped happily in its blissful cocoon. And while all of that is true, it doesn’t fully describe what happens in the delightfully titled sub-genre Continue Reading

(courtesy Simon & Schuster Australia) One of the most sacred axioms of book buying, assuming you pay attention to such things and honestly this reviewer rarely does, is that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (but of course we all do so sorry, not sorry). Probably up there Continue Reading

(courtesy Hachette Australia) As deaths in murder mysteries go, the one that that graphically kicks off all the fantastical sleuthing in The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett is hard to beat. That doesn’t escape the two people assigned by nervous local authorities – idiosyncratic, fiercely intelligent and socially awkward Continue Reading

(courtesy Pac Macmillan Australia) Prequels aren’t always a good idea. While we naturally want to know, being the endlessly curious creatures that we are, what led to the characters and places of a story we have come to love, it’s not always a satisfying journey to go on. But as Continue Reading

(courtesy Harper Collins Australia) Have you ever wanted you could live inside a book? This phrase, replete with melancholy longing and wishful hopefulness begins and ends The Astral Library by Kate Quinn, its use embodying the need many of us have had at one point or another in our lives Continue Reading

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) “I wanted to write a book that felt like a warm hug.” Reading that sentence in the Acknowledgement section of The Spell Shop by Sarah Beth Durst was not only delightful because who doesn’t know want to know the author of a book they loved actually Continue Reading

(courtesy Simon & Schuster Australia) It’s a rare thing indeed to pick up a fantasy novel and to have it be not only fantastically imaginative, with audaciously fun world-building that knocks your absolute socks off, but to be full of off-the-wall ideas that are hilarious, engaging and which come to Continue Reading

(courtesy Hachette Australia) If the wondrously good Emily Wilde trilogy of books by Heather Fawcett didn’t convince you that fairies aka faeries were a whole lot of malevolently inconsistent bad news, and nothing like their Disneyfied modern image of light and flittery loveliness, then get ready for the similarly superlative Continue Reading