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.Humble life lessons: ‘Parting Words’ by Benjamin Ferencz
On Ben Ferencz’s website, his last book Parting Words is introduced as follows:
How many people do you know grew up as a poor immigrant in America during the Great Depression, won a scholarship to Harvard Law School, landed on the beaches of Normandy on D Day, were present at the liberation of concentration camps including Buchenwald, Mauthausen and Flossenburg, held leading Nazis to account at the Nuremberg trials and have fought for an International Criminal Court to hold war criminals to account the world over?
https://benferencz.org/books/parting-words-10-little-lessons-for-a-remarkable-life/
Now you know one.
Benjamin Ferencz turned 100 in 2020. In this extraordinary book, he shares his remarkable life story and the nine humble, compelling and life-affirming lessons he’s learned along the way that we can all harness for ourselves.This slender little book tells an amazing story of a truly incredible life, and it offers the gift of the lessons he learned while living it.
A man of humility, humour and wisdom, Ben Ferencz’s achievements belied his small stature and disavantaged background. His life mission was to help create a more peaceful and humane world. Despite endless disheartening news cycles, his optimism and hope never failed him.
Parting Words weaves together stories about his life, family, and work at home in the US and on the world stage, with some of the essential things he learned along the way. What I loved most is that these are not expressed in opaque, philosophical language, but as everyday easily understood phrases, and given alongside the circumstances that led him to this point of view. Some events were prosaic, everyday; others less so (like witnessing the horrors of the Nazi death camps, or helping establish the International Criminal Court.)
His nine key lessons touch on life circumstances, hopes and dreams, education, principles, life trajectories, truth, love, stamina, the future…and include:- You don’t have to follow the crowd
- Learn where you are
- Choose to be good
- The path is always bumpy, never straight
- Always speak your truth, even if no one’s listening
Buy a copy; I promise you will not regret it.
Buy several copies, because I’m pretty sure you will want to press this book into many hands while saying, Read this! In fact, my husband bought an extra copy for our young teen grandson. It makes an ideal gift for a young person embarking on this business of life, and for anyone feeling jaded by theirs, or by the world around them.Parting Words was written with Nadia Khomami and published by Sphere in 2020.
The beautiful & the broken: ‘The Chateau on Sunset’ by Natasha Lester
Epic Love. Tragic Loss. Beautiful Friendship. The entrancing story of an orphan who grows up surrounded by the beautiful and the broken in the world’s most infamous hotel.
Australian author Natasha Lester writes lush, epic novels, mostly in historical settings. I’ve enjoyed several of these, especially the ones featuring stories from WWII. Her novels are always focused on women from the past who face seemingly insurmountable obstacles, but who nevertheless triumph. The Paris Photographer is a good example of this, about the photographer Lee Miller whose wartime work in Europe was famous, for a while, but who faded into self-imposed obscurity after the war ended.
The Chateau on Sunset seems, at first glance, to be a different beast altogether. The first part of the book is set firmly in the USA in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and is about a teenage girl who is sent to live with her reclusive aunt when her parents are killed in an accident.
This takes her from her home in New York to Los Angeles – or more precisely, Hollywood. Her aunt is a ‘washed up’ star of the silver screen, and her new home is the Chateau Marmont, a famous (notorious?) hotel where the rich, famous and wanna-be stars gravitate around movie moguls and film icons.
Aria is young and naive and grieving terribly for her parents. She is helped to adjust to this very new environment by two aspiring actresses, Calliope and Flitter (their ‘stage names’, I was relieved to find out). The three become firm friends, sisters of a kind, despite the age difference between Aria and the other two.
But the world of Hollywood starlets and burned-out stars is not a safe place for a youngster and Aria has to quickly learn the rules of survival. She becomes a reluctant party to a secret that haunts her and makes her potential prey to at least one of the Hollywood sharks that swim in the murky waters of the hotel.
She realises that she must leave the hotel to find her own way in the world and live life on her own terms. How she eventually does so is the crux of this story.
The author references Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, a favourite childhood book, for the inspiration for this novel. In a way, it is a re-imagining of this classic story, but one in which Jane, not Rochester, is the character with agency and control over her destiny, despite her shaky start. There is a passionate romance with accompanying doubts and troubles, but by the end of the novel Aria is steering her own ship towards a future she has chosen.
The darker elements of this book concern the behaviours of characters we might think of as ‘Harvey Weinsteins.’ The author channels her rage at the predatory behaviour of that man and others like him, and the destructive Hollywood studio system, into a gripping novel that has us cheering for those who defy the unfairness of the place and time.
You get the future you give in to, or the one you fight for.
It’s time for me to be the star of my own goddamn life.
The Chateau on Sunset ebook loc 86%Hollywood’s famous Chateau Marmont is brought to life in the characteristic style of this author, with attention to the details, large and small, that made up this iconic building and those who lived there, in the mid-twentieth century.
The Chateau on Sunset is published by Hachette Australia in March 2026.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for an advanced review copy.
A child, a family, a play: ‘Hamnet’ by Maggie O’Farrell
First published in 2020, this historical novel by award-winning author Maggie O’Farrell is generating a resurgence of interest due to the release of the film adaptation in cinemas. I plan to see it soon and wanted to read the novel first; always my preference if possible, as the original book (in my opinion) always offers a richer, deeper story than a film can tell in its more time-limited format.
I wasn’t disappointed. As you can probably tell from its title, Hamnet is an imagining of the origin story of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. And what a rich, deep story it is.
The author focuses on the members of the playwright’s family, especially his wife, called Agnes in the book, and their three children, Susanna and twins Judith and Hamnet. Shakespeare himself is, if anything, more of a secondary character, in that while his emotional arc is crucial to the story, he is never named and he comes and goes physically throughout, while the narrative centres on events in his home town and within his birth family and that of his wife.
I’m sure it is no spoiler to say that the crux of the novel is the death of Hamnet, still a child, and the effect this tragedy has on all concerned. The intense grief of the boy’s family, especially his parents and twin, is expressed in different ways by each individual. A family already under pressure, tested to breaking point, despite the deep love that exists there. Will this marriage survive? How does each person cope with the unimaginable but all too common tragedy of a child’s death? These are the questions that run through the book, keeping us engaged and committed.
The author has brought to brilliant life the Tudor-era setting: the sights, smells, daily lives in a quiet town like Stratford-on-Avon and in the busy, overwhelming city of London, where Hamnet’s father goes to pursue his quest for a career in the burgeoning world of Elizabethan theatre. Descriptions are deep, detailed, almost forensic: the journey of a single flea from a far off port, across land and oceans to the home where it bites Judith, resulting in her almost-death from bubonic plague and Hamnet’s subsequent illness, is startling in its specificity.
Within this vivid context the novel’s heart beats: love of a parent for their child, love of a twin for their paired sibling, love of a writer for their craft, love of a couple for their other.
And so a famous play was born: its story of overwhelming, maddening grief, echoing across the centuries to readers and theatre-goers today.
He can manage these: histories and comedies. He can carry on. Only with them can he forget who he is and what has happened. They are safe places to stow his mind (and no one else on stage with him, not one of the other players, his closest friends, will know that he finds himself looking out, every evening, over the watching crowd, in search of a particular face, a boy with a slightly crooked smile and a perpetually surprised expression; he scans the audience minutely, carefully, because he still cannot fathom that his son could have just gone; he must be somewhere; all he has to do is find him).
Hamnet ebook loc 254 of 310Hamnet was published by Tinder Press in 2020. I read the ebook version on Kindle.
The film adaptation is in cinemas as I write.Library treasures: ‘A Waltz for Matilda’ by Jackie French
I’ve had this one on my shelf for several years now, picked up at a street library, and finally had a chance to read it. So glad I did! First published in 2010, it is an imaginative re-telling of the origin story of arguably Australia’s most famous (and certainly beloved) folk song, Waltzing Matilda.
Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolabah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled
‘You’ll come a’waltzing Matilda with me.’In this story, Matilda is a girl living with her very sick mother in an inner-city slum, working long hours in a jam factory to try to make ends meet. When her mother dies, she is left alone to fend for herself in an unkind world.
She goes in search of her long-lost father, a man her mother described as a ‘golden man’, though the couple had separated years earlier. The quest takes her to a drought-stricken isolated sheep farm on the outskirts of a small town, neighbouring a large run established by a squatter, Mr Drinkwater.
Her father welcomes her into his life but because of the drought, is about to leave his farm and go ‘on the track’ as a swagman, searching for work as he travels. He agrees that Matilda can accompany him, because where else is she to go?
Their journey together is cut short, though. Mr Drinkwater traps her father as they camped by a billabong, with troopers arriving to arrest him on a trumped-up charge of sheep stealing. He drowns (no spoiler here, the song says it all) and Matilda is once again on her own.
She decides to go back to her father’s farm and try to make a go of it, with the help of several others who come to help in honour of her father’s memory. He was a man much admired by the shearers and other workers in the district, because of his activism around shearer’s rights and the movement towards a national federated nation, able to pass laws to protect the rights of the more vulnerable in the community.
As always with a Jackie French novel, the story weaves in several important historical events and themes: the crippling1890s drought and subsequent economic depression; movements for better working conditions, women’s suffrage and temperance; conflict between wealthy squatters and the indigenous people of the land they stole.
It also deals unblinkingly with the racism of the time, the way that the move towards a united nation of Australia was motivated by ideals but also by self -interest and racist attitides, especially towards Aboriginal people and the Chinese. I love how this author does not shy away from the more difficult parts of our nation’s history.
A Waltz for Matilda is a big story, and book one of the ‘Matilda’ series. It’s very readable, with moments of both humour and sadness, and characters you can care about. Matilda is an admirable figure and it is a delight to watch her growth from orphaned girl to capable young woman. Best of all, it’s a wonderful way to introduce some important history to young Australian readers. Perfect for middle grade to young adult readers, this (no longer young) reader recommends it highly!
A Waltz for Matilda was published by Angus & Robertson in 2010.
Whale sharks and autism: ‘Western Steps’ by Brian Sherlock
What brings whale sharks, itchy backpacker hostel sheets, and autism together?
Western Steps, a short ebook by an indie writer from Melbourne.
In a few short chapters of vivid, lively writing, Brian Sherlock shares his first-ever solo travel experience to Western Australia: the grimy backpacker hostel in Broome where he began his adventure; the fifteen-hour-long ‘murder run’ bus ride south to the famous Mingaloo Reef; his sharp anxiety at entering the water from a boat into the endless-looking Indian Ocean; swimming near whale sharks, the largest fish in that ocean; the kindness he receives from others; strange encounters in yet another hostel…all of which he experiences while also having the (then undiagnosed) condition of autism spectrum disorder.
This journey in 2010 was a bucket list one for the author and which, because of his anxiety attacks, required quite a bit of courage and determination, along with a dollop of humour. I’m happy that he reports in his author’s note that it was certainly not his last trip. He has since travelled widely in Australia and overseas and enjoys writing about his experiences.
The tone of his story is chatty, very personal, and definitely amusing at times. It offers an insight into the experience of travel, from someone living with what might today be described as an ‘invisible disability’. Sherlock states that he hopes his story encourages other ‘neurospicy’ folk who harbour a longing to travel, to get out there and explore the world.
While there are aspects of writing craft that need development, this is a good start to what could well become a series of short travel stories drawn from his own experience.
Western Steps was published by the author in 2025 and is available on Amazon or from the author’s website.
Thank you to the author for a copy to review.Chilling ‘What if?’: ‘Inheritance’ by Genevieve Gannon
If you could reduce or eliminate the chance that your unborn child might suffer or die from a genetic illness or rampant variants of a virus that has already swept through the world, would you do it? What if you could ensure that your future son or daughter was born with gifts such as enhanced lung capacity, stronger bones, or a beautiful singing voice?
These are questions at the heart of Australian author Genevieve Gannon’s novel Inheritance. It’s strapline: The perfect child is now possible, makes pretty clear the kind of future world its characters inhabit.
Though, it’s not that far into the future. The novel opens in 2027, which at the time of its publication was just three short years away.
Emily and her husband Dougal are deciding whether to use a new gene editing service alongside more traditional IVF to help conceive a child. Now legal, the service offers to help the couple avoid some of the health-related pitfalls in their own families. But how far should they go in designing a baby?
There is a second, interwoven narrative set decades later, in a world where gene modification is no longer regarded as benign or desirable.
Adelaide is a political staffer in the office of a Parliamentarian whom she admires and respects, someone who is against the discriminatory rules that have been introduced in recent years, that put ‘modified’ people into a second-class of citizens.
But Adelaide has a secret that she is determined not to expose, one that involves a plan she and her husband have put into action, but that results in the clock ticking…will the result be disaster or joy for the couple?
Inheritance reads a bit like a thriller, with a tight timeline, conflicting political and social divisions, and adventures that require all the courage that Emily and Adelaide can muster.
As I read this story, though, I was mindful of how applicable its themes are today: particularly technology that develops faster than any social and administrative systems and laws that should guide it. A glaring example the world faces right now is, of course, AI. How do humans manage this powerful tool to best serve everyone, not just the few who seek to gain money or power from its use?
It’s also a reflection on the demands and complications of modern life and relationships; if we forgive those who make mistakes and under what circumstances; if we forgive ourselves for our own mistakes.
Inheritance is a gripping read that, despite its near-future setting, grapples with perplexing and troubling issues that seem all-too-real in today’s world.
It was published in 2024 by Pantera Press.
Love and Survival: ‘A Great Act of Love’ by Heather Rose
Heather Rose is an award-winning Tasmanian author with a range of published works across an astonishing array of genres: contemporary environmental thriller (Bruny), character-driven literary work set in a major art museum (The Museum of Modern Love), memoir (Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here), to name just three of her earlier books.
A Great Act of Love extends that range into historical fiction, as she tackles a story inspired by her own family history, returning again to the island that is her home.
Caroline Douglas comes to Tasmania (then known as Van Diemens Land) in 1839 in the guise of a young, wealthy widow with a young boy in her care as ward. She has left England after great tragedies, in which her entire world had been lost to her. She settles beside an abandoned vineyard on the outskirts of Hobart Town and tries to make sense of this upside-down world of convicts, their guards and administrators, other exiles like herself, and those who operate between the lines of order and chaos.
She has her own secrets, which are gradually revealed as the novel progresses. Secrets about her own family and about herself and her real reasons for choosing a tiny isolated speck on the map as her new home. Secrets about the reason she tries to revive the neglected vineyard on her property and dreams of establishing a champagne product to rival that of France.
Caroline quickly realises that almost everyone she meets has their own secrets and desires and she must navigate her way between truth and lies in order to survive and to progress her own goals. There are dark deeds afoot, here in this place of exile and enslavement and genocide.
Seeing white men enslaved brought Cornelius no balm. Cruelty was a boundless cycle of suffering that deserved no allegiance.
A Great Act of Love, ebook version p192 of 433There are different stories told from various perspectives: Caroline’s own, her father, her aunt, a Commandant of another penal settlement at Norfolk Island, an escaped slave from the Americas, and others. Readers get insights into what is driving Caroline and others, through these carefully meted out nuggets of information. We test and re-test theories as the novel progresses; this keeps us engaged and committed to uncovering the truth.
The setting is beautifully conveyed: an island colonised by a people who think little of killing, imprisoning, punishing other humans. But also a place of great, wild beauty.
The theme of love underlies the entire novel, but also of strength and survival and vision:
As he watches her walk back across the field in her new boots of kangaroo skin he wonders if she is yet accustomed to the sensation of the world having flung her adrift. Mostly what he’d seen of people was a yearning to take away the dread of uncertainty. To be content in the smallness. But some people seem to harbour greater thoughts. Mrs Douglas, he thinks, is doing all she can to manage this unfamiliar life and to make something of it.
A Great Act of Love, ebook version p197 of 433A Great Act of Love was published by Allen & Unwin in September 2025.
Immersive adventures for kids: ‘Revenge of the Barbarians’ by S J Morris
I was contacted by the author of this novel for middle grade readers, asking if I’d be interested in writing a review. Since it is a life mission of mine to encourage young readers to fall in love with historical fiction, of course I said yes.
Revenge of the Barbarians is set in Roman-ruled Britain, and the author has planned a whole series of similar books set in different historical times and places. Fabulous idea.
As the series name suggests (Time Path Adventures) the book is of the ‘choose your own adventure’ genre. Each small chapter allows the reader to choose one of three next step options, and be directed to the appropriate page for that choice. The options vary (from the relatively ‘safe’ to the definitely adventurous) and each next step, of course, offers further options. There are several chapters which eventually readers will land on, which serve as resolutions (again, varied) to the story.
The added bonus is that readers can go back and choose a different option to see where it leads, as many times as they wish.
The book is written in present tense and second person point of view, addressing the reader as ‘you’. This is a powerful way to immediately engage readers and make them a central part of the narrative.
It opens with the main character (the reader) as a youngster in Roman-controlled Fort Vindolanda near Hadrian’s Wall, needing to respond to a definitely scary scenario. A frightened messenger has just arrived, babbling about ‘eyes in the forest’. Is this a group of Calendonian barbarians about to invade? Or something to do with the magic of the Celtic Druids that appear and disappear in mysterious ways? What to do: report the situation to the disbelieving adults at the fort, or investigate yourself?
What I enjoyed about this book is that the author asserts in the preface that ‘history should never be boring’, then proves why, with an adventure that keeps the pages turning. There are dollops of humour, too, of the type youngsters will definitely enjoy (latrine jokes, anyone?)
I also love that there are many historical details sprinkled throughout, based on real history. There’s a helpful Glossary right at the beginning so that any readers not familiar with aspects of ancient Rome can quickly find the info there.
A terrific start to a promising series for younger readers that will be sure to engage and – I’m sure – turn them onto historical fiction.
Revenge of the Barbarians was published by Time Path Adventures in 2025 and is available on Amazon books.
My thanks to the author for a review copy.
