‘Wings Over Valletta’ by Tracy Cook
In my four visits to Malta, my husband’s homeland, I have not yet made it to the Lascaris War Rooms. After reading this historical novel set during the appalling bombardment of the Maltese islands during WWII, I will make sure to visit this site of global significance next time.
Why global significance? Because tiny Malta is located in a spot in the Mediterranean Sea of such strategic importance that whoever controlled it, had a huge advantage during wartime. As a result, the people of Malta endured raids by both Italian and German planes, the islands becoming the most bombed places in the whole war.
Under British control, the authorities set up a command centre deep beneath the capital Valletta, utilising tunnels dug centuries earlier by the order of Knights who then ruled the islands. This is where novelist Tracy Cook set much of the action in her story. She chose to tell of the heroic efforts of the ‘plotters’, Maltese and English women who took on the vital work of plotting air battles and missions.
We have probably all seen footage of plotters in Britain, who showed the movements of enemy and Allied planes by pushing markers around huge maps, allowing those responsible for battle strategy to get a visual representation of what was happening. This was well before the age of digital screens and instant information transmission as we have today. In Malta, the women who did this work were not employed by the RAF. Rather, they were civilian women recruited from towns and villages across the islands.
The Ops Room, Ladscaris War Rooms. Source: ‘Historia Magazine’ https://historiamag.com/women-siege-malta/ They worked long hours in difficult physical conditions under immense pressure. At the end of a wearying shift, they faced even more stressful conditions when back above ground: the destruction of their homes, local services, constant air raid sirens requiring a fast exit to the nearest shelter. They worried about their families, friends, neighbours…Sworn to secrecy about their work, they were unable to share their worries with anyone outside.
Wings Over Valletta portrays all this through the eyes of the protagonist Kitty Campbell, whose father is a senior figure in the British Navy in Malta. Kitty is at home in Malta, with local friends and a job, until the war interrupts her normal life. It is then she signs up for work as a plotter and descends into the War Room tunnels for her first shift.
The enormous challenges faced by the Maltese people are skillfully portrayed: loss and heartache; hunger as the seige bit hard; anxiety over a possible German invasion. The internal political divisions are also shown: Malta had been a British colony for over 150 years and even in wartime, there were people agitating for independence, which was eventually achieved in 1964. Yet the country as a whole was awarded the George Cross for their bravery in 1942: the only nation to have ever been so collectively honoured.
Kitty nurses her own private loss and heartache: a child she unwillingly gave up for adoption years before, and her determination to find this little girl. She also faces betrayal from people she trusts and the hurt of knowing she’d been lied to. Like all the women plotters in the War Rooms, she has to find a way to navigate her own problems while staying focused and strong in her mission to help the war effort.
When she meets a British flying officer, romance blossoms, which adds to the story but doesn’t detract from the themes of danger, worry and commitment to duty .
This book is an emotional testament and tribute to the courage and tenacity of the people of Malta. It’s also chock full of references to Maltese lifestyle, food, culture and language, resulting in a wonderful portrayal of a tiny country which played a very big role on the world stage.
If you’d like to find out more about this amazing chapter of WWII history, you can read more about the Lascaris War Rooms here.
Wings Over Valletta was published by Allison & Busby Publishers in 2026.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for a review copy.A thriller series in small bites: Book One, ‘No Passengers’ by Elainie La Force
The thriller genre is not my usual read, however I was intrigued by this bite-sized novella sent to me for review by author Elainie La Force.
Book One in a series of three, it introduces Anastasia Pestova, a twenty-three year old teller at the Bank of Moscow, who gets into a situation that quickly spirals out of control when she is accused by her employers of fraud.
A series of large transactions she authorised at work is questioned and she is under suspicion. Her father is appalled, even more so when he learns that an old friend might also be implicated. As the suspicious activity is investigated, it looks like money laundering and drug king-pins might also be involved.
Far from having an opportunity to clear her name, there seems no option for Anna but to get out while she can.
What follows is a high-stakes, fast-paced flight from Moscow, relying on help from strangers and her own intuition and resourcefulness, to get to safety.
This little book is definitely a page-turner, with well drawn characters and settings. I enjoyed the snippets of Russian language and landscape, too. I read it on a train journey and it felt satisfying to follow Anastasia’s adventures to their conclusion in the time available. It’s a great opening for a series for fans of the thriller genre. The next two books in the series are Displaced and Foreign Muse.
No Passengers was published by Rockhouse Press in 2026.
My thanks to the author for a review copy.Searing honesty: ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’ by Arundhati Roy
Have you ever found yourself in the inexplicable situation where, despite your love of one book from an author, you realise that you have not read anything else by them?
This happened to me recently. Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy’s memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, is on the list of titles to be discussed this year by my book group. I was pleased to see it there, as her debut and award-winning novel The God of Small Things is on my list of all-time favourite books.
Yet I realised that I had not read any of her subsequent works.Why not?
I absolutely could not say.
Perhaps just time, and the clamour for my reading attention by so many other titles.I also realised that I knew very little about this author, other than she was born and lives in India, that her debut was based, in part, on some of her childhood experiences, and that she has been an activist for many years.
From the opening pages of Mother Mary (which was shortlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction) I could see that this was going to be a searingly honest account of her life, from childhood, through formative experiences of young adulthood, taking in her writing career but also the adventures and escapades of her activism on environmental and human rights issues.
A main theme is the troubled, eccentric relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, whose life trajectory was anything but settled and ordinary. Mary was a fiery warrior for women’s rights in an India divided by religion, caste, gender and political beliefs. A single mother of two young children, Mary established a small private school to make a living for her family, but also to put into practice her beliefs about how children should be educated.
She also challenged unfair laws in the courts, battles which lasted decades.
Mary was beloved and feared in equal measure by her children, her employees, colleagues and the children she taught. She was cantankerous, eccentric, unpredictable, and sometimes cruel.
All this her daughter describes, including how her mother’s behaviour led to her decision to leave home forever at an early age, but also when Mary died, how she felt …wrecked, heart-smashed. I am puzzled and more than a little ashamed by the intensity of my response. (ebook loc 2 of 374)
I had never known that beloved landscape, never imagined it, never evoked it, without her being part of it…She was woven through it all, taller in my mind than any billboard, more perilous than any river in spate, more relentless than the rain, more present than the sea itself. (ebook loc 1 of 374)
We are then immersed in the various, often precarious, situations that Arundhati encountered after leaving home; the people who impacted on her teenage and adult life; the path that led, eventually, to her writing The God of Small Things; the reaction of the literary world and her fellow Indians to the Booker Prize win, and what she did after.
As always, I was fascinated by the ‘back story’ of her first novel. It always intruiges me, how a spark of an idea, a memory or image, sound or smell, can be fanned by an artist into the flames that eventually become a finished novel, poem, song or painting.
Once I had finished Mother Mary Comes to Me, I realised that this book is several stories in one. It is the story of the lives that, through accident of birth or choice, were a family. It’s also the story of a nation as it struggles with the journey from colonial possession to independence, from tradition to modernity and everything in between.
Mother Mary Comes to Me was published by Penguin Books in 2025.
The tragedy of war: ‘When Sleeping Women Wake’ by Emma Pei Yin
‘When sleeping women wake, mountains move.‘
This is the kind of historical fiction that has me turning immediately to the Author’s Note, and then searching for more information on the events and places depicted, as I read.
I knew next to nothing about the fate of Hong Kong Chinese under the brutal occupation by the Japanese Imperial Army in WWII, and this novel (the first by Australian-Hong Kong Chinese author Emma Pei Yin) certainly whet my appetitie to learn more.
It follows three women through the war; their stories and eventual fates connected but separated for a time after the invasion of their home.
Mingzhu is married to a wealthy businessman, leading a luxurious but unsatisfying life. As First Wife, she adores her daughter Qiang but must endure the taunts of her husband’s concubine with whom he has a son. Mingzhu is intelligent and strong-willed and to ensure her daughter has opportunities that were denied to her, she chooses a compassionate and well educated English man to tutor Qiang as the girl grows into young adulthood.
Biyu is her companion and maid, who came into Mingzhu’s family when Mingzhu herself was born. Loving and loyal, Biyu has devoted her life to her mistress and will do anything to protect her and young Qiang.
Qiang dreams of more: an education, a profession…and when the war hits, she dreams of fighting to protect her home and family.
But when the Japanese Army descends on Hong Kong, the three women are separated. Each endure hardship and witness unspeakable acts of cruelty, alongside courage and kindness, sometimes from unexpected sources.
The story traces the development of the East River Column, a group of resistance fighters. This part of the novel is based on a real group whose acts of sabotage, theft of weapons, rescue of downed Allied pilots and victims of the Japanese Army, all played a part to hinder the invaders in their goal of complete domination of Asia. It’s a thrilling story, underlaid with the real human tragedy of war, represented by Mingzhu, Biyu and Qiang and those they encounter.
These three women also represent some of the best attributes of the human instinct for survival, loyalty, love and courage. While the novel doesn’t have a stereotypical ‘happy ending’, it does offer hope and a profound respect for those caught up in suffering at the hands of others.
When Sleeping Women Wake was published in 2025 by Hachette Australia.
Connections: ‘Three Reasons for Revenge’ by Dervla McTiernan
Fans of Irish-Australian crime writer Dervla McTiernan will welcome the arrival of her latest book, Three Reasons for Revenge. Her previous book (2025) continued the Cormac Reilly series, and she has also written stand-alone stories such as What Happened to Nina? (2024).
This is another stand-alone, pleasingly set in Australia, and featuring as protagonist Detective Sergeant Judith Lee, who could well become the centre figure of another series. She is an experienced and able police officer, but the case that opens up when she takes the complaint of young Alexis Turner, is unlike any other she has dealt with.
Alexis has alleged sexual improprietry on the part of a university clinic counsellor, a man who has been on Judith’s radar since a similar complaint years earlier. But no sooner has Judith opened the inquiry, than Alexis disappears. And then the case turns into a murder investigation.
She must work against the clock to connect three seemingly disparate individuals to the case and to each other. The only thing they appear to have in common is that they have been recipients of a beautifully wrapped parcel with an ambiguous object inside, along with a cryptic note.
This author excels at weaving intricate tales in which the obvious answers are the wrong ones and the unexpected is sure to happen. This one is no different. There are several twists and surprises, before the mystery is solved.
I enjoyed the characters, finely drawn and believable, and the pace keeps the pages turning quickly. Along the way, the novel explores themes of grief, childhood trauma, and psychological distress.
As often the case for me, I wasn’t completely convinced by the reveal towards the end; however that did not stop me finding this one a great holiday read. I hope to meet Detective Sergeant Judith Lee again, too.
Three Reasons for Murder was published in April 2026 by HarperCollins.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for an advance review copy.
A different lens: ‘The Shortest History of Australia’ by Mark McKenna
This latest volume of Black Inc’s Shortest History books offers an invigorating challenge to traditional southeast-focused and chronological narratives of Australian history.
In this book the national story is told via themes, such as ‘the founding lie’, ‘the Island dilemma’, ‘taking the land’, ‘fire and water’, or ‘the big picture.’ As the author remarks in chapter one: …history is not inherently linear; only historians make it that way. (p7)
The ‘usual’ big events and national turning points are all here: Captain Cook and the Endeavour; the penal colony, land and gold rushes, wars, legends like Ned Kelly and the ANZACS, migration, Federation, the legal sorcery of ‘terra nullius’ and the Mabo and Wik cases that overturned this doctrine, and so on.
However they are viewed through a series of different lenses: First Nations people and their stories and experiences; non-British migrants; the folk who occupied or visited the continent’s north over untold years; those who suffered under the endemic racism embedded in the British colonisation; asylum seekers in recent decades; droughts, floods and fires.
The story of pearl diving in the north is told alongside the stories of gold, wheat and wool in the southern states.
The centrality of Country to First Nations peoples’ worldview and the growing recognition of this among non-indigenous Australians is discussed, along with examples of the newly created Commonwealth’s wilful blindness to the humanity of Indigenous Australians at Federation (p230) and the heroic and persistent campaigners for Aboriginal rights over many, many years.
Mark McKenna has an informative and engaging narrative style; his book reads like a series of fascinating stories rather than a history text. Highly recommended for those who enjoy non-fiction that asks its readers to question and revisit what we think we know about our own national history.
The Shortest History of Australia was published by Black Inc in 2025.
Easter bilbies, mums, fun things: new picture books from Harper Collins
Easter is on the way; the shops full of soft toy bunnies, Easter buns and chocolate eggs. So an Easter-themed picture book is timely, especially as this one is all about bilbies, not bunnies.
Are you the Easter Bunny? by Janeen Brian and Lucinda Gifford features simple, rhyming text and bright, ochre-and-grey themed illustrations. Children can learn about the unique features of this endangered marsupial, and how its habits like digging tunnels for shelter actually contribute to the long-term health of the desert landscapes in which it lives. A lovely accompaniment to a chocolate Easter Bilby, perhaps?
Published in January 2026What do you call your Mum? continues one of my favourite Australian series for youngsters. Written by Ashleigh Barton and illustrated by Martina Heiduczek, it explores words for ‘mum’ used by children in a range of languages including Scottish Gaelic, Arabic, Cherokee, Gumbaynggirr, Malay and Somali (to name a few).
I love these books for their gorgeous richly detailed pictures and the way cultures and languages are celebrated along with different family roles.
Published February 2026Now for something different. Australian vet Dr Claire Stevens has written all about the weird, wacky and downright disgusting creatures of our planet. In Gross Things Animals Eat, she explains the food chain, how different foods help animals grow and stay healthy. The ‘gross things’ are just that: dirt, poop, wood, vomit, blood, rotting animals…kids will love squirming at these fun facts.
The humorous illustrations by Adele K Thomas give a chuckle along with the eeewwws.
Published in March 2026In contrast, Tiny Good Things by Gabrielle Tozer and Sophie Beer, is a picture book that encourages children and adults to look carefully, slow down, notice the little things in the world that can bring pleasure and happiness. I guess it’s aligned with the mindfulness/gratitude movement, which we certainly need more of in our world! The pastel illustrations tap into the child’s imagination as the text hints at adventures above the clouds or beneath the sea. This one celebrates tiny wonders from ordinary days.
Published March 2026These four Australian picture books all published by various imprints of HarperCollins Children’s Books.
My thanks to the publishers for copies to review.Immersive, engrossing fiction: ‘A Far-Flung Life’ by M.L. Stedman
Do you love a book you can fall into, immersing yourself into the place, time and people of the novel to the extent that you think about it in between reading and can’t wait to pick it up again?
I was delighted to find A Far-Flung Life just such a book.
Set in a remote sheep station in Western Australia, the story begins in the 1950s and concerns the MacBride family who have lived and farmed here for generations. Theirs is an ordinary story for the time and place – until it isn’t.
When a freak road accident kills two members of the family and seriously injures another, the whole family’s trajectory is changed forever. In the aftermath of the accident, Matt, the youngest MacBride, is plunged into a moral and emotional journey for which there is no map, no guide, as he is forced to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness. (From publisher’s website)
As with ML Stedman’s best-selling 2018 debut The Light Between Oceans, this novel examines what happens to ordinary people who are faced with extraordinary circumstances, and how fate, and the choices they make, both play a vital role in determining their futures.
The story’s events are narrated from the viewpoints of various major and some minor characters, showing how their thoughts, goals and fears affect their behaviour and the lives of those they are in relationship with. Every character felt real to me, their motivations driven by their own perspective on the worlds they inhabit.
Those worlds are beautifully depicted, especially the MacBride station, ‘Meredith Downs’, the vast landscapes surrounding it, and the small local town that services the farming communities. How do families and individuals cope with the isolation of these remote areas? What kinds of social lives do they conduct, and what inner lives do they lead? How are children educated, what do the day-to-day lives of sheep farmers look like? This novel answers these and many other questions in an immersive and engaging way.
There are some dark themes, to do with death, suicide, and family relationships; some readers might find some of the content challenging.
But, if you are able to try to understand why people make the choices they do in life, this novel will appeal. It deals sensitively with the results of trauma, both physical and moral/emotional. It’s a family saga, a coming-of-age story, a love story; a novel that poses several major moral quandaries and asks should we lay blame here or show compassion?
On any old outback property, you can see them, the skeletons of dreams. Houses long abandoned, windmills rusting, fence posts splintered, tank stands collapsed: every one of them was once a hopeful beginning…
Our lives come and go like these gold-rush towns. We arrive, we grow, we thrive, then we’re gone. Then the forgetting happens, and once-solid foundations are barely traces in the earth, from unguessable lives… In the end, we’re all looking for a place to ride out the storm of life. Among all these husks of houses and fossils of trees, we are like hermit crabs, borrowing a shelter for a time, and moving on.
A Far-Flung Life, loc 65 of 414 on ebook.I was engrossed in this big story right from it’s opening pages and although satisfied by the novel’s conclusion, I was sad to leave the MacBride family. Highly recommended.
A Far-Flung Life is published in March by Penguin Random House Australia.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a review copy.Imposter sydnrome: ‘The Writers Retreat’ by Victoria Brownlee
I admit to being a little puzzled by this novel. Described by the publishers as a ‘twisty and atmospheric thriller’, I was well into the second half wondering when the tension would begin. It’s definitely atmospheric – one of the best things about the book is its setting (a beautiful old home in the south of France, where the owners offer writing workshops and retreats for published and aspiring authors.)
The story centers around Kat, an Australian author who has a best-selling romance novel under her belt, but is catastrophically stuck on her second manuscript, with a crippling case of imposter sydrome. Perhaps she really can’t write, after all? Perhaps the success of her first book was a fluke?
On a whim she books a last-minute spot for a two week retreat in France, hoping that this will kick start her creativity and prompt her writing.
What she gets is so much more, because she begins to suspect that Helen, the retreat leader, is hiding something, which may have to do with the success of Helen’s own first novel.
Kat begins to pry and snoop, while keeping a daily journal as required by the workshop facilitators. This is where I began to lose patience, as the journal seemed to me to be repetitive and a bit whingy. It reads as journals often do – introspective, self-doubting, constantly questioning her decisions and impulses. Yet she does act impulsively, often unwisely, eventually leading herself into danger.
So, I found the novel slow moving, repetitive at times, frustrating at others.
Aspects I enjoyed were (as mentioned) the setting and some of the characters, who were well drawn. And the food! Victoria Brownlee has been a food writer and previously published light romantic novels set in France and featuring food, and she does capture the allure of the French culture, countryside and food beautifully.
So yes, this novel puzzled me. I spent some time while reading it trying to work out if it was a light escapist novel or a more serious thriller, and in the end decided on the former.
The Writers Retreat is published by Affirm Press (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) in March 2026.
My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an advance copy to review.Cornish thriller: ‘Based on a True Story’ by Sarah Vaughan
Having been enthralled by Sarah Vaughan’s Anatomy of a Scandal (2018), and Reputation (2018) (my review), I jumped at the opportunity to read an advance copy of her latest novel.
Like the previous books, this one is of the crime/thriller genre, with a hefty dose of family and psychological dysfunction thrown into the mix.
It concerns a famous British children’s author, Dame Eleanor Kingman, and her three daughters, who have come together to celebrate Eleanor’s 70th birthday with a grand party at her beautiful estate on the Cornish coast.There is something about the Cornish landscape that has inspired great fiction: thinkof Daphne du Maurier’s amazing stories. I have read quite a few contemporary novels with the Cornish moors, or wild cliffs and errant tides as their background. Having been to Cornwell, I can certainly understand the attraction. It is a stunning part of England and so easy to imagine smugglers dragging contraband spirits or tobacco in or out of one of its many seaside caves.
This novel uses that evocative setting well. The ocean, the beautiful but treacherous sea, and the steep cliffs on Eleanor’s property, all become symbolic of the characters’ various states of distress as the tale is told.
The publisher’s tag line for the book is: Once upon a time there was a family. Everything else is a lie.
It pretty much sums up the theme. Every main character (and a few of the minor ones) has a secret, some more damaging or dangerous than others. Eleanor’s secret would threaten her career, her status as a literary icon, and the very comfortable life she has established, were it to become known. Her distress at the possiblity of it being uncovered by someone who wishes her harm is palpable and ramps up over the course of the novel.
One plot point which puzzled me was why, given this anxiety, Eleanor agrees to invite a documentary filmmaker to interview her – and her staff, friends, family and associates – for a profile piece about her life and career. Hubris? A desire to craft her own public legacy? Whatever the motivation, it goes horribly wrong and this forms the core of the story.
Sarah Vaughan is very good at getting into her characters’ heads, making the reader privy to their thoughts, their hopes and desires and yes, their fears. In this novel there are multiple viewpoints, though the story does centre around Eleanor and her daughters.
As the party draws closer, the tension mounts and the stakes increase for all. The wild Cornish sea and its cliffs play a key part in the drama, as we would expect.
I will admit I did not enjoy this one as much as the previous books by this author that I have read. That said, I still found it engrossing to the point where I was tempted to read way past my ‘lights out time’. If you like a finely drawn psychological drama, you will enjoy Based on a True Story.
Based on a True Story is published by Simon & Schuster in March, 2026.
My thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for an advance review copy.
