A kind of gothic: ‘The Diamonds of Tilly Devine’ by Jackie French
One thing I most appreciate about profilic and best-selling Australian author Jackie French is that she is unafraid to explore darker themes in her work. Her books will at times touch on issues and events that some authors might steer away from, especially in books for children.
Her latest historical fiction for adults delves into some very dark topics indeed: Sydney’s ‘razor gangs’ of the 1930s; the desperation of the poor in the city’s slums; drugs; prostitution and trafficking of young women; corruption of all kinds; sadistic personalities.
The protagonist of The Diamonds of Tilly Devine is Connie, who is reeling from the death of the mother she’d nursed for seven years. Now left with only an old kitchen chair to her name, she is considering suicide.
Happily it moves on from there and Connie’s life trajectory does move upwards, but not before some very dark and difficult, almost gothic, experiences which serve to strengthen this compassionate young woman to a diamond-grade toughness.
The Tilly Devine of the title was a real historical figure, one of two rival gangland queens in Sydney during the 1920s and 30s. Speaking of tough: it was well known in her world of sly-grog shops, brothels and gambling clubs, that Tilly would shoot anyone who crossed her – or who mistreated her ‘girls.’ Especially the Diamonds – not sex-workers as such, but women groomed for a particular role. One she offers to Connie.
Connie makes mistakes, some with disastrous consequences, but she survives, eventually finding the home and family she’d longed for, along with an understanding of the things that really matter in this world. There’s a murder mystery and a gripping courtroom drama along the way, things I always enjoy in a novel.
This novel is chock-full of wonderful characters, richly drawn settings, and delicious food of the era (excepting the crumbed brains and roast mutton, neither of which appealed to this vegetarian.) But the scones, cakes, puddings and biscuits read like they’ve just come from the author’s kitchen, which they may well have done!
While this one is perhaps a little too gothic for my taste, Jackie French’s skill as a story-teller had me up reading at night, reluctant to put the book down before I’d finished the next chapter, then the next…
The Diamonds of Tilly Devine is published by HarperCollins in June 2026.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for an advance review copy.Christmas book bonanza
The last months of the year are undoubtably the busiest in the publishing and bookselling world. The big blockbusters for holiday reading, the gifts for under the Christmas tree, the beautiful recipe books for those who harbour fond hopes of cooking a lot while on their summer break.
And thankfully, there is also a plethora of books for children hitting the shelves. Books make the best Christmas gifts and matching the book to the right young reader is a special pleasure.
Here are four picture books to choose from, for those little readers in your life.
The Christmas Tree Catastrophe by Emma Bowd and Matt Shanks is a funny, light-hearted story of a crooked Christmas tree, bickering baubles, a grumpy nutcracker and a cat-and-mouse chase that goes terribly wrong. With a nod to the classic ‘The Night Before Christmas’, this rollicking poem positions a clever little gingerbread man and some nifty geometry as rescuers, restoring everything to its rightful place before Santa’s arrival.
Published by HarperCollins Children’s books.
This is an Elf by Beck & Matt Stanton is absolutely a book that begs to be read aloud. It posits nonsense ‘facts’ which are humorously contradicted by the bright, simple illustrations.
Kids will adore shouting ‘NO!!!’ as pages ask them to agree that a candle is a Christmas tree and a reindeer an elf. It’s a fun scramble through Christmas icons, turning each of them on their head.
Published by ABC Kids, an imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books.
A Barney and Gumnut Christmas explores different Christmas experiences as the koala, Barney, is asked by his furry and feathered friends ‘What does Christmas actually mean?’
Is it celebrating with friends, getting and giving presents, swimming in the creek, games and naps, Christmas food, decorations, camping and making wishes on a shooting star? Perhaps it can be any or all of those things. The four friends find their own ways to share their Christmas ideas together.
This one is a large format books, which allows the gentle, detailed illustrations to really shine.
Published by HarperCollins Children’s Books
A Song for the King is a gentle re-telling of the nativity story, but told through the experience of three young animals who love to sing: a donkey, a lamb and a camel.
Sent away because their voices sound raucous and loud to the villagers, they learn to keep quiet – until they witness the birth of a baby boy in Bethlehem and come together once more to give voice to their feelings of joy, love and peace.
This one is written by Katrina Nannestad and illustrated by Freya Blackwood, both of whom number amongst my most-admired in the Australian children’s book world.
It was published by ABC Kids, an imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books.All of these titles were published in August and September 2025. My thanks to the publishers for review copies.
More Australian favourites: three new picture books
Jackie French, one of my favourite authors of both adult’s and children’s books, has a new release in a series that focuses on animals and the way environmental events like fire, flood and drought affect them. You can read my reviews of the first two, The Fire Wombat, and The Turtle and the Flood.
In book three, we meet Joseph, a young kangaroo in a mob trying to survive drought. The effects of the challenging environment and deprivation are described vividly: the animals’ thin tails, their listlessness. Joseph senses water from afar and he decides to go in search of it. It’s a risk, but he knows that he and his mob won’t survive long without life-saving water and fresh grass.
None of his mob follow, so he must journey a long way on his own, under a hard, hot sky and plains of dust and rock. All of the animals and birds on his way call out for water as he passes through their country. His adventures include one drawn from the author’s own experience – a collision between a kangaroo and her (thankfully stopped) car. The kangaroo was unhurt but the incident began a long connection between her and the animal, which stayed around her property long afterwards.
In the story, it eventually rains and the land around Joseph is transformed with running creeks and lush new grass. He is challenged, but unharmed, by the Big Roo of a mob of kangaroos in the new land he has travelled to, and accepted as one of their own. This is now his home.
This simple story encapsulates the struggle of Australia’s animals and birds when faced with drought, and the survival strategies they use. But I think it’s also about the human response to danger and disaster, and the search for a better life – perhaps a plea for understanding the situations of the increasing number of ‘environmental refugees’ in the world, escaping from intolerable conditions brought about by the climate crisis.
Ms French is well known for her advocacy for animals and environmental protection, and her NSW property is a haven for wildlife. As she remarks in her short Author’s Note: A wild animal can be a friend, even if you never share a word.
The illustrations by Danny Snell reflect the colours of a parched Australian landscape: browns, olives, ochre; but also the welcome cool blue of a billabong when rain does come.
The Drought Kangaroo is published by Angus & Robertson, an imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books, in October 2025.
Ash Barty, tennis star turned inspiration for children’s books, offers a celebration of the joys of a beachside camping holiday with family and friends, in My Dream Holiday, written with Jasmin McGaughey and illustrated by Jade Goodwin.
Every sizzling summer, my family travels to Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) for our dream holiday. We are excited to meet our cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents there.
We will spend days doing all of our favourite things while exploring the beach, bush and creeks.I wonder if fewer children nowadays experience the fun of a camping holiday? Any kids who’ve not had this experience will no doubt want to after reading this book, filled as it is with tents, a campfire, beach games, snorkelling, footy and fishing. And at night, telling scary stories and then sleeping curled up tight in a tent with your pet.
It’s a bright, colourful book that oozes the charms of familiar summer holidays in a familiar place, surrounded by the people you love.
My Dream Holiday was published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in September 2025.
My Story, Our Country: A First Nations Family History is a follow up to Learning Country: A First Nations Journey Around Australia’s Traditional Place Names, by Gudanji/Wakaja artist and storyteller Ryhia Dank. Here, the author explores her own family stories and experiences, reflecting on culture, language, traditional practices. Of course it also encompasses some historical as well as contemporary perspectives.
The narrative includes both celebratory and destructive realities: the loss of traditional land management practices (now being revived) and healthy traditional foods; modern adaptations of cultural practices (from body scarring to tattooing, for example); the hurt and sadness caused by the government policy of removal of indigenous children from their families; the theft of artefacts by explorers and settlers and the long campaigns to have them returned.
The strong theme throughout is
We may look and sound different to our ancestors, but we are the same too. We are still strong, still here and still Aboriginal.
The artwork is beautiful: traditional motifs and design features tell the story of the book in a visual language but the pictures also incorporate text and contemporary images to make a fascinating meld.
One other point I will make about this book is that, despite being in picture book format, it is not really a book for very young readers. The language and concepts are better suited to older children, middle-grade ages for example.
It is a beautiful way to introduce, or reinforce, important ideas and perspectives about Australia, its past and present, and hope for our collective future.
My Story, Our Country is published by Harper By Design in October 2025.
My thanks to the publishers for review copies of these new books. Look out for them in your local library or bookstore.
Through Nancy’s eyes: ‘The Scent of Oranges’ by Kathy George
When I was eight, my mother took me to the cinema to see the newly released film adaption of the hit musical Oliver! How I loved it. I think I became a little obsessed by the songs, the setting, the characters: innocent young Oliver, played by Mark Lester, the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild), Mr Bumble (Harry Secombe), the villainous Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) and Fagin (Ron Moody), and lovely, cheeky and caring Nancy (Shani Wallis).
I do, however, also remember being rather traumatised by the (spoiler alert) murder of Nancy. That scene on London Bridge, with the grey dank tenements of Dickensian London all around and Nancy’s headlong rescue dash with Oliver – only to end in her death at the hands of her lover – well, it affected me deeply. When I think about it now, it was possibly my first introduction to the awful fact that there was such a thing as what we now know as ‘intimate partner abuse’ and that it can and does lead to women’s deaths.
Since that time I have read the original Oliver Twist as penned by Dickens, but I must admit that scenes from that 1968 film have stayed with me too.
So I picked up Kathy George’s 2024 retelling of this classic tale with interest. In The Scent of Oranges we see the events and places through the eyes of Nancy, and are privy to her thoughts and feelings about her life.
I appreciated that this author did not attempt to give Nancy a twenty-first-century kind of ‘agency’. She is still a prostitute, pimped out by the deplorable Fagin and Sikes, living in the kind of grinding proverty that would erode the hope and joy from most lives. However she is able to articulate, if only to herself, some cherished hopes and small pleasures, and her reactions to the things that happen to and around her.
The orange in the title is a symbol of the occasional, tiny glimpses she has of beauty and the marvellous gifts of the natural world – although she only ever tastes the fruit twice in her short life.
Nancy in this version is nothing if not pragmatic, acutely aware that her future holds little to look forward to – despite meeting and falling in love with a gentleman who treats her kindly and promises her a better life. This book does not change Nancy’s fate, so readers who are familiar with the original story know in advance that this promise can never be fulfilled. Still, we cheer for Nancy and celebrate her few small, hard-won successes.
My only quibble with the novel is the use of vernacular spelling and terms for Nancy’s voice: ‘wot’, ‘carnt’, ‘innit’ and so on. For some reason I found this a bit jarring.
But that’s a small niggle. Overall the novel does a great job of bringing to life the London of Nancy, the Dodger, Fagin and Sikes, in all its filth, energy and struggle. I very much appreciated seeing a version of the story through Nancy’s eyes.
The Scent of Oranges was published by HarperCollins Australia in 2024.
Welcome back Cormac Reilly: ‘The Unquiet Grave’ by Dervla McTiernan
Have you heard of the Irish bog bodies? Gruesome topic, I know, but fascinating in its own way. The peat bogs occasionally reveal bodies of people who have died long ago, corpses preserved in the special environment in which they fell. Some of them thousands of years old, bearing signs of strange ritual torture or sacrificial customs from long ago.
This is the setting of the opening scene of Irish-Australian Dervla McTiernan’s new mystery novel. A body is discovered in a Galway bog. There are ritualistic mutilations on the body, just like those from ancient times. But on closer inspection it is not an historic corpse, but the body of the local teacher, a man who went missing two years earlier.
The investigation is led by Cormac Reilly, a welcome return to the pages after some stand-alone works by McTiernan set in the US (What Happened to Nina? and The Murder Rule) I’ve read those novels and they are good, but I do think her books set in Ireland are the stronger for the brilliant settings and the fully fleshed out characters who inhabit them, Cormac in particular.
He is a good detective with a strong moral compass which in earlier books has led him into difficulties with colleagues and ‘the system’ and in this novel he confronts new dilemmas. Not least of which is being asked by his ex-partner Emma to help her find her missing husband Finn, who has disappeared while on a work trip in Paris. It’s a distraction that Cormac really doesn’t need but he is a generous man and still genuinely cares about Emma and so he becomes involved, against his better judgement.
Complicating matters further are other new murder cases to solve, possibly connected to the first, possibly ‘copycat’ cases, possibly completely coincidental. It’s up to Cormac and his team to figure out if there are connections or – worst case scenario – a serial killer at large.
The cases are eventually solved but for Cormac and his partner Peter, the moral questions to do with the application of the law and justice are then front and centre. Does arresting the person who commits a crime really serve justice in this case?
As in the best crime and mystery fiction, this novel leaves you with much to think about even after the case is solved and the last page turned.
The Unquiet Grave is published by HarperCollins in April 2024.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.
Love & magic for grownups: ‘Cherrywood’ by Jock Serong
If versatility is a sign of a writer’s skill, then Australian author Jock Serong’s latest offering proves he has bucket loads of the stuff.
From his earlier works of surprising, emotive crime fiction, to his trilogy of historical fiction beginning with Preservation, he has explored darker aspects of the human psyche and behaviour.
Cherrywood is different in that it is a playful work that evokes themes of deep magic, while setting the work firmly in the prosaic Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy across two timelines – early twentieth century and the 1990’s.
There are two main characters. Thomas is heir to a Scottish industrialist family fortune who gambles it all on a fanciful scheme to build a paddlesteamer to ply its trade across the bay in Edwardian-era Melbourne. The boat is to be built entirely from a load of beautiful cherrywood, whose mysterious provenance in eastern Europe forms part of the novel’s backdrop of vague menance. He travels to Australia in search of his vision, followed later by his loving wife Lucy and their young daughter Annabelle. Fortune does not favour either the family or his plans.
In 1993, Martha is a lawyer working for a major law firm. She is a fish out of water, being clever but saddled with a conscience, in a company and surrounded by colleagues without one. One evening she stumbles across the Cherrywood, a pub she has not seen before in Fitzroy. She becomes obsessed with the place, as it seems to elude her efforts to find it again. Gradually her future, and the hotel’s, become intertwined…
The novel has many layers, all seemingly disparate, but its brilliance is the way they all interconnect by the end. There is so much here about love, and vision, and endurance, loss and grief, about the ordinary lives of people and the hurdles we must all overcome. The magic underlying the cherrywood motif is beautiful, subtle to begin with, intruiging enough to have this reader want to push on, to find the clues, to figure it all out along with Martha.
Readers familiar with Melbourne will enjoy the author’s descriptions of both the early years of the city and the version of thirty years ago. The Cherrywood of the title is very much at home in both.
Cherrywood is a novel that works as a modern fable, as historical fiction, as a love letter to Melbourne, as a romance. It’s a complex and beautiful novel.
It was published by HarperCollins in 2024.
Nurturing peace: ‘The holy and the broken’ by Ittay Flescher
Since the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023 and the resulting devastation of Gaza by Israeli defence forces since, I have been silenced. How could I put into words my revulsion at the violence, my despair at the apparent intractability of the centuries-old enmity? I knew too little about the history of the conflict, the bewildering tangle of geo-political and religious factors that have contibuted to the bitterness poisoning generations of Israelis and Palestinians.
Many of my left-leaning friends and contacts were vocal in their criticism of the Israeli government for the brutality of the retribution wreaked on innocents in Gaza, including women, children, the elderly, the sick. I could not disagree with this. Bombing hospitals, denying medical and water supplies to civilians surely can never be justified.
But the chant at ‘pro-Palestinian’ rallies of from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free – what does that mean? That the Jewish population should be expunged from the land? To go where? And then?
When I saw Ittay Flescher’s book title and subtitle, I knew I had to read it. The holy and the broken references a line from Leonard Cohen’s beautiful song ‘Hallelujah’, which Flescher argues would be Jerusalem’s anthem if she were a soundtrack rather than a city. As a place of deep and abiding significance for three of the world’s major religions, Jerusalem and the land that surrounds it is certainly holy. But torn apart over centuries by ancient battles, crusades and modern warfare, it would be difficult to argue that it is not also broken.
And the subtitle: A cry for Israeli-Palestinian peace from a land that must be shared positions both the book and its author from within the land in question, not a book written by an outsider, but by someone intimately familiar with the land and its people. And importantly, someone who believes that the way forward is to imagine a different future for both Palestinians and Israelis.
The author is someone who has worked as a peace builder and educator for many years, both in Jerusalem as the education director at Kids4Peace, an interfaith youth movement for Israelis and Palestinians, and as a high-school educator in Melbourne.
His book opens with a personal account of the October 7 Hamas attacks from the perspective of an Israeli man in Jerusalem: hour by hour, then day by day, both absorbed and repelled by what he was seeing and hearing on the news, wanting to turn away but also needing to know. Seeing his country become instantly united by this existential threat; opposition to the government seemingly shut down overnight.
Then he draws back and begins to reflect and to question.
In Flescher’s view, the core of the tragedy between the river and the sea is a deep and reciprocal misreading of the other. Here he touches on education, media and journalism, language difference, even religious texts: all can play a part in either cementing difference and stereotypes, or affirming the humanity of everyone who lives there.
All have suffered historic and ongoing trauma. Palestinian and Israeli families experience daily pain and heartache at the loss of loved ones in senseless acts of violence. Their religious traditions feature deep, historic connections with the same land.
He emphasises the importance of building grassroots connections across religious and language divides; the kind of connections that occur outside political structures. Take the politics out of it; the people who have the most to gain from peace are youngsters, their parents, friends and neighbours. People who just want to get on with their lives.
It involves recognising each other’s humanity, and understanding that the love Palestinian and Israeli parents hold for our children is the same, as is the profound grief we experience when they are taken from us.
It means embracing the notion that injustice anywhere poses a threat to justice everywhere and that security of one side requires security for the other.
The holy and the broken pp 222-223The most moving section of the book for me was found in the two letters the author wrote to future Israeli and Palestinian teenagers, which come towards the end of the book. They beautifully encapsulate his vision for what the land he holds so dear could be like, ‘when there is peace.’
If, like me, you have been at a loss as to how to think about or discuss the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, or wish there was an alternative to the black-and-white rhetoric of much of the public debate on the issue, I urge you to read this book. It offers another perspective and a welcome glimmer of hope on an otherwise very dark horizon.
At the time of writing this post, the author has planned a number of book launch dates in Australia. I am going to the Sydney one. Perhaps I will see some of you there.
For more information about Ittay, his book or his lifelong work for peace, you can visit his website here.
The holy and the broken is published by HarperCollins in January 2025.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.
2024: My year in books (and what’s in store for 2025)
In 2024 I participated in three reading challenges again, always a fun way to keep variety in my reading diet. Sometimes the results at the end of a year can be surprising; this is one of those times.
In the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge I undertook to read 15 books of historical fiction – I came in right on target. It is easily my favourite genre of fiction.
For 2025, I will choose that same target in this challenge.
In the Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge, I chose the ‘Amateur Sleuth’ target of 5-15 books, and hit 14 books, so that’s a giveaway that crime fiction is another favourite of my genres. I’ll go for around that many again this year.The surprise result for me this year was the Non-Fiction Reading Challenge, where I chose a conservative target of ‘nibbler’, aiming for 6 books. Instead I read a whopping 16 non-fiction books in 2024! I’m not sure what that means, but perhaps I should choose a higher target for 2025? Well, I’ll probably aim for ‘nibbler’ again and see how I go.
I have a private challenge of my own, to read more books by First Nations authors, in any genre. In 2024 my reading included 10 works by Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander writers: encompassing fiction, non-fiction, and children’s books. In 2025 I hope to equal or better that number.
As always, I am indebted to publishers, especially HarperCollins, and to NetGalley, for sending advanced copies of books for review. I also thank authors who have approached me asking if I would read and review their work.
I know it can be a scary thing to put your writing out into the world and ask for feedback. I never approach the task of reviewing a book lightly. Someone has put months (usually years) of work into research, drafting, rewriting, redrafting, editing, rewriting, editing again, and again, and again…until the finished product is finally put into their hands. For this reason I treat each and every book with the respect it deserves. And I thank each author and publisher for allowing me the opportunity to read and review their work.
So, on to 2025. I wish all my fellow readers a wonderful bookish year ahead.
Photo by Sumit Mathur at pexels Powerful family story: ‘Tears of Strangers’ by Stan Grant
The title of this extraordinary memoir is from a Russian proverb: The tears of strangers are nothing but water. These words echoed in my mind as I read this story of his family, that is also a powerful and sometimes challenging examination of the concept of race, of Australian history, and the author’s own position within the black and white worlds of modern Australia. It’s also a call for empathy: for Australians of all backgrounds to learn and understand the historical events that have shaped us all, and to feel more than indifference at the past and present suffering of others.
It is beautifully written, canvassing his own family’s roots in both black and white Australia and the complications and challenges that involves.
He is searingly honest, writing as he does about his relationships with family members, his search for truth, and his hopes for a better future for all First Nations people. The narrative does not skirt around issues such as violence, alcohol and drug use, poverty, incarceration. He describes the so-called ‘Bathurst Wars’ and other conflicts where whites and indigenous communities clashed over encroaching white settlements, and the sickening violence that occured there and in many other parts of the country.
He describes indigenous heroes of history and more recent years, tracing the steady thread of resistance since white settlement. Contrary to past assumptions by many, Aboriginal people did not meekly submit to colonisation. We should all know more about these figures from the past, who were at the time regarded by white settlers and authorities as troublesome, criminals and threats, but to their own people were freedom fighters.
As a way to learn about these and other aspects of Australia past and present, I can highly recommend Tears of Strangers. It’s focus on the micro, on positioning one person and his family within the context of wider events and the past, allows readers to read with empathy.
Part of this search means unlocking secrets, always painful and often tragic. I hesitate now as I stare at a blank page that I know I will soon reveal perhaps more than I would like to. But the truth demands courage. I hope only one thing: that one day Aborigines can be free of the all too painful choices our blackness has forced upon us.
Tears of Strangers (loc 8% ebook version)
Tears of Strangers was published by HarperCollins in 2002; the edition I read published 2016.
For all cat lovers: ‘Mickey’ by Helen Brown
When I received this book to review, I wasn’t sure if it was a good fit. After all, I’m not what you’d call a cat person. I don’t dislike cats, but I don’t always gravitate towards them as true ‘cat people’ do. (A certain Queensland based fluffy Birman gentleman cat might be the exception here.)
I needn’t have worried. Mickey is certainly about a cat – a stray tiger-striped kitten with extra toes who entered the author’s life in 1960’s New Zealand – but as the book’s subtitle suggests, it’s much more than a ‘cat story.’
Mickey becomes The cat who helped me through times of change by being a silent yet steadfast companion through the author’s early teen years, in an era of enormous personal, family, and social and political changes.
The author has woven the story of her relationship with Mickey, into the broader fabric of her rather eccentric family life, the idiosyncrasies of her neighbourhood and small town community, and her growing awareness of the wider world around her.
As a child of the 1960’s in a small rural community, I resonated with some of the descriptions in the book. Helen’s mum, for example, sewing and knitting garments for her family, as a cost saving measure but also a way to show her love for them. The agony of embarrassment at being fitted for a first bra. The sense of loss as older sibling grow up or move away. The ‘hollow art of waiting’ in a world in which it was impossible to communicate with each other at the tap of a screen. The unease generated by living in the nuclear age, thinly veiled but still apparent amongst adults. And of course, a war being fought somewhere in the world, reflected on TV screens and in the papers – in this case, the war in Vietnam which took away New Zealander and Australian young men at the very beginning of their adult lives.
The author describes these and more, with the most memorable scenes being those featuring her unconventional family: her father’s visions for the future development of natural gas as an energy source, her mother’s obsession with the local musical theatre productions, her older brother’s fascination with taxidermy. They are characters drawn beautifully and with great affection.
But of course Mickey the cat is the star of the book, and here the author’s deep love for and intuitive understanding of cats shines:
Felines don’t give a hiss about the materialistic obsessions that make people miserable. They live in the gaps, observing energies between themselves and other beings, offering affection when it suits them… A feline is never fully tamed. Maintaining its connection to the wild, it refuses to be bossed around or trained to sit like a dog. The cat is seldom open to bribery. When it offers trust, the gift is more precious than the first camellia of spring.
Mickey p91I am pretty certain that cat lovers will adore this book. But even cat-neutral people, like me, will enjoy its gentle telling of a coming-of-age story and its depictions of a world that is, in many essential ways, no longer with us.
Mickey is published by HarperCollins Publishers Australia in May 2024.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.
