New Books / Reviews
Reviews of New Books Winter 2026
Alexis Turner walks into the police station to report an assault.
By the end of the day, she is nowhere to be found. Soon after she disappears, three identical packages arrive at three very different places, a respected psychologist’s home; a socialite’s mansion, and a struggling single father’s run-down apartment. Inside, each gift is perfectly tailored to its recipient and each will tear apart the life of its intended victim.
It is June 21st, the longest day of the year, and new mother Camilla’s life is about to change forever.
After months of maternity leave, she will drop her infant daughter off at daycare for the first time and return to her job as a literary agent. But, when she wakes, her husband Luke isn’t there, and in his place is a cryptic note. Then it starts. Breaking news: there’s a hostage situation developing in London. The police arrive, and tell her Luke is involved. But he isn’t a hostage. Her husband; doting father; and eternal optimist, is the gunman. What she does next is crucial. Because only she knows what is in the note he left behind that morning.
This is the story of a founding document in Australian democracy and the people who made it. It paints a vibrant picture of the profound and ancient culture of Australia’s first peoples, in all its continuing vigour.
In 1963, a year of race riots in the United States and explosive agitation for civil rights worldwide, the Indigenous people of the Northern Territory were yet to be recognised as full adults. Almost to a person, they were classed as wards of the state, unacknowledged as having any ownership over the land on which they had lived for tens of thousands of years. Throughout the tumultuous year of 1963, leaders of the Yolngu clans worked with white allies on the unprecedented political strategy that culminated in the presentation of four Bark Petitions to Federal Parliament. It was a key moment in the formation of a uniquely Indigenous engagement with Australian politics.
Details the life of Charles Sanger (1880–1953), a legendary bush hermit who lived in the Fryers and Upper Loddon Forests near Mount Alexander for nearly 50 years.
Often dubbed the “Fryers Bushranger,” he was a beloved, elusive local identity.
No one can change the past, but the Midnight Train can take you there. The chance to re-live the moments that meant most. To see what kind of person you really were.
For Wilbur his best days were with Maggie, the love of his life. On his honeymoon in Venice. Before he gave it all away. He wishes he could go back and live differently. But to do so risks everything.
Friday, one thirty p.m. Emily Barnes is finishing work for the week, ready for a break from her laptop. Then she receives a panicked voicemail from her son Zach, punctuated by a gunshot.
By four p.m. she’s driving a stolen car out of Perth, with explicit instructions from Zach’s captors, in three days deliver the car to Gunpowder Creek, a ghost town 900 kilometres deep into the West Australian outback. Miss the deadline and Zach dies. And don’t open the boot. The job should be simple. But there’s someone dangerous roaming those lonely highways. Someone who doesn’t want the car and its cargo to make it to Gunpowder Creek. Someone with cold eyes who has seen death and liked it.
The five members of the St. Tredock Book Club disagree on everything; from the books they read to the biscuits they eat. But when one of the group suddenly disappears and a dead body is discovered at his house, these bibliophiles must put their differences aside to solve the mystery.
Having recently moved to Cornwall, Nova Davies started the book club to impress her new colleagues at the community centre, but so far it’s a disaster. To make matters worse, six thousand pounds is stolen from the community centre during one of her meetings, putting both her job and the whole centre at risk. Suspicion for the theft falls on book club member Michael, especially when a dead body is discovered at his house and Michael disappears.
It’s 1956, and while Melbourne is in a frenzy gearing up for the Olympics, the women of Australia are cooking up a storm for their chance to win the equivalent of a year’s salary in the extraordinary Australian Women’s Weekly cookery contest.
For two women, in particular, the prize could be life-changing. For war widow and single mum Ivy Quinn, a win would mean more time to spend with her twelve-year-old son, Raymond. Mother of five Kathleen O’Grady has no time for cooking competitions, but the prize could offer her a different kind of life for herself and her children, and the chance to control her own future.
When Lou sees an ad for a long-abandoned mining town up for sale, it doesn’t take her long to convince her sister and their oldest friends to go in on the idyllic property buried in the bush, a place where the four families can hide away on weekends, get back to nature and unstick the kids from their screens.
But things start to go wrong before they even arrive for their first camping trip. A rogue deer sends a trailer off the road; a neighbour complains about the fence line and squatters have set up camp down by the river. Soon none of that will matter, though, because by the end of the first night someone will be dead.