Belinda McKeon captivatingly examines youth and sexuality in her second novel, set in late ’90s Ireland. Tender focuses on a loving turned obsessive friendship between Catherine and James, recent arrivals to Dublin from their respective rural communities. Catherine is studying English and art history at Trinity College Dublin while James is pursuing his dreams of…
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If you’ve ever overanalysed a Facebook friend request, celebrated an increase in Twitter followers or agonised over the time elapsed from when a message was “seen” to a reply sent, then In Real Life is the book for you. Beguiling and affecting, Chris Killen’s latest novel examines human connections both online and IRL. In 2004…
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Fantomina: or, Love in a Maze was published in 1725. Its author, Eliza Haywood had an indisputably impressive writing career; she authored numerous works within a diverse range of genres. Although her writing was experimental in both form and content, she has, until recently, been curiously absent from the literary canon and is scarcely known beyond academic…
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Amy Poehler’s newly-released Yes Please is part memoir, part self-help book, part opportunity to peer into the Poehler family scrapbook. Dotted with photos, youthful creative writing attempts, and full-colour scans of personal mementoes ranging from college playbills to handwritten acrostic odes to Tina Fey, Yes Please is a bright and cheerful tour through Poehler’s life…
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Rebecca Jessen’s debut verse novel is excellent. I’ve read it twice cover-to-cover, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The first time, I read it too quickly to take notes or consider it critically – the narrative positively races along and pulls the reader with it. I had to read it again to be able to write this…
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Claustrophobia by Tracy Ryan leads the reader down a trail of lies, lust and obsession. Penelope Barber, happily married, finds a decade-old letter written by her husband to his ex-lover, Kathleen Nancarrow. It convinces her that their marriage had been built on nothing but a lie and the recipient of the letter becomes the object of…
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We live in a time when writers are spoilt for choice; they have more power than ever to take publishing into their own hands and share their words with the world. A J Conway is one such writer who has chosen to control her words and go down the self-publishing route. Once considered the very last…
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The Wood of Suicides by Laura Elizabeth Woollett is intensely engaging, thought-provoking and disturbing. The psychosexual exploration of obsession, seduction, and power dynamics in relationships looks at attachments that transgress social boundaries. The Wood of Suicides is loosely based around the Greek myth of Apollo and Daphne. The god Apollo, a powerful and great…
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It was a young art teacher. Or was it a student teacher in geography class? It could have been his biceps half-hidden by navy t-shirt sleeves, or those tight skirts she paraded around in (did she even wear underwear?), or maybe it was something about his stubble that made you imagine it grazing across your…
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You could be forgiven for thinking The Asylum, the latest novel by Australian author John Harwood, was written during the height of the nineteenth century sensation novel. Harwood’s work effortlessly imitates this style of writing with its melodramatic Gothic tropes – stolen identities, madness, forbidden lust and family secrets – though the novel’s cleverness occasionally…
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When reading a poetry collection, if I’m lucky, there might be one or two moments that catch my breath—when a poet’s particular insight or phrasing is so profound that it invokes a special kind of magic—delivering a rush of emotion that makes me gasp. I might describe this sensation as a literary orgasm, and David…
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Allyse Near’s Fairytales for Wilde Girls is a refreshingly original debut. Though clearly inspired by a range of fairytales, ghost stories, literary works and poems, Near uses her affection for these genres to develop an entirely new fantasy world, one where she can explore the pitfalls of young adulthood. The novel follows Isola Wilde, a…
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Apparently we’re at the cusp of the fourth wave of feminism, with formidable ladies like Amanda Palmer and Malala Yousafzai at the battle front. It’s all a bit tiring, really—to think that after an ocean of feminist thought, we have not yet toppled the old-age patriarchal values which restrict equality. Unfortunately, it’s true: in many…
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All books have an aim. Sometimes the author clearly states the aim, sometimes they gradually find it. Regardless, the reader goes on a journey through the realisation of that aim. Whether it be to explore small town life through a love story or to solve a murder mystery where the detective holds an enticing secret,…
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