Cass Moriarty (Author of The Promise Seed)

Cass Moriarty rated a book it was amazing Once We Were Wildlife: Stories by Inga Simpson (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Indisputably one of the top wildlife and environmental writers in Australia, Inga Simpson (also an accomplished photographer) captures Country, land, climate issues, species extinction, habitat and the sheer wonder of individual animals, birds, fish, ...more
Apr 27, 2026 06:08PM · 2 likes · like · see review
Cass Moriarty rated a book it was amazing Life Drawing by Emily Lighezzolo	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Emily Lighezzolo’s debut novel LIFE DRAWING (UQP 2026) explores the female body from a multitude of perspectives: the physical changes of puberty, childbirth, menopause and aging; how females consider their own bodies over time; the male gaze and how ...more
Apr 14, 2026 08:36PM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Life Drawing by Emily Lighezzolo. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Life Drawing by Emily Lighezzolo <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Cass Moriarty rated a book really liked it One Night at Silver Lake by Katherine Scholes (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
ONE NIGHT AT SILVER LAKE (Penguin Random House 2026) by Katherine Scholes is a fascinating insight into life in the 1960’s in the dual settings of Tanzania (gaining independence) and Tasmania. The author’s work is informed by her own experiences of g ...more
Apr 10, 2026 08:39PM · like · see review
Cass Moriarty rated a book it was amazing Frogsong by Melissa Manning (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I opened the first pages of FROGSONG (UQP 2026) with somewhat anxious trepidation, because how could author Melissa Manning have written a novel as wonderful as her first book SMOKEHOUSE (an impossibly good collection of interlocked short stories)? B ...more
Apr 08, 2026 01:08AM · 2 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Frogsong by Melissa Manning. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Frogsong by Melissa Manning <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Cass Moriarty rated a book it was amazing Idaho by Emily Ruskovich	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
IDAHO (Penguin Random House 2017) by Emily Ruskovich is such a delightful, masterful, brilliant, expansive, heartbreaking jewel of a novel, and the rightful winner of the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award (decided by librarians and readers the ...more
Apr 05, 2026 06:13PM · 1 like · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Idaho by Emily Ruskovich. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Idaho by Emily Ruskovich <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Cass Moriarty rated a book it was amazing I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
What a strange, enthralling, compassionate, haunting question of a book is I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN (Penguin Random House 1995) by Jacqueline Harpman. This slim feminist dystopian volume has a simple yet indecipherable plot and is an absolute delig ...more
Mar 27, 2026 08:26PM · like · see review
Cass Moriarty rated a book it was amazing Bereft by Chris Womersley	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
THIS BOOK!!! BEREFT by Chris Womersley (Scribe Publications 2010) has been on my TBR pile for many years and I can’t believe it took me this long to finally read it. If you love HAMNET by Maggie O’Farrell, then BEREFT will have the same emotional eff ...more
Mar 18, 2026 06:36PM · 1 like · like · see review
Cass Moriarty rated a book it was amazing Dear Madman by Edwina Shaw	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The extraordinary book DEAR MADMAN (&Also Books 2026) by Edwina Shaw is part ancestral memoir, part true crime, part family history, part mystery, part psychological examination and part sociological and cultural analysis. Touching on grief, murder, ...more
Mar 13, 2026 07:48PM · 3 likes · like · see review
Cass Moriarty rated a book it was amazing The Gambler (PI Vince Reid, #2) by J.P. Pomare (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Thriller writer JP Pomare’s latest book THE GAMBLER (Hachette 2026) is the second in a new series about Private Investigator Vince Reid, a character introduced in his previous novel THE WRONG WOMAN. Pomare’s trademark twists and surprising reveals ag ...more
Mar 09, 2026 07:26PM · like · see review
Cass Moriarty rated a book really liked it Department of the Vanishing by Johanna Bell (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
DEPARTMENT OF THE VANISHING (Transit Lounge 2026) won the Tasmanian Literary Award for author Johanna Bell. This book is an eclectic mix of form, content and issues; an unusual prose poem punctuated with photographs, redacted police interviews, scien ...more
Mar 01, 2026 05:54PM · like · see review

Cass Moriarty rated a book it was amazing

Once We Were Wildlife: Stories
by Inga Simpson (Goodreads Author)

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Indisputably one of the top wildlife and environmental writers in Australia, Inga Simpson (also an accomplished photographer) captures Country, land, climate issues, species extinction, habitat and the sheer wonder of individual animals, birds, fish, ...more

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Life Drawing
by Emily Lighezzolo

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Emily Lighezzolo’s debut novel LIFE DRAWING (UQP 2026) explores the female body from a multitude of perspectives: the physical changes of puberty, childbirth, menopause and aging; how females consider their own bodies over time; the male gaze and how Emily Lighezzolo’s debut novel LIFE DRAWING (UQP 2026) explores the female body from a multitude of perspectives: the physical changes of puberty, childbirth, menopause and aging; how females consider their own bodies over time; the male gaze and how it affects women’s feelings of self-identity; whether bodies are on show or hidden, and whether this changes how people relate to the personality of the person; and how a woman’s body might be ‘seen, touched, loved, hated, commodified and reclaimed’ over a lifetime.

The author achieves this multifaceted viewpoint through the lens of a body as art, whether photographed, sketched, painted or simply adored through the eyes of another. LIFE DRAWING raises so many interesting questions about our relationship with our own bodies, the assumptions we make about others because of their bodies, and how those feelings shift over the years.

At its heart, this novel is a contemporary love story. Maisie works as a life-drawing model and first meets Charlie when he participates in one of her drawing classes. He’s an artist and sees her as just that – a body he is keen to sketch. But afterwards they coincidentally connect through a share house and soon share mutual friends and a lifelong game of Hypothetical that they share as a sort of love language. ‘Hypothetically, would you want to live forever but invisible, or a short life seen?’

Their words and promises, their dreams and ambitions, their fears and mistakes, their joys and longings reverberate throughout the years as they each poke at the tender places of the other, knowing each other so well (perhaps even sometimes too well) that they develop a mutual co-dependency or need or want or yearning that at times neither is equipped to deal with.

Over two decades, they navigate their complex feelings for one another throughout friendship, intimacy, estrangement and family.

Lighezzolo’s portrait of the female body is unflinching, courageous, curious, questioning, vivid and pulls no punches. She doesn’t skirt around issues of exploitation, consent, pornography, intimacy, aging or artistic impression but rather uses each of these themes to examine what lies (often deeply hidden) in the minds of women about their own bodies, and in other people about the lives and bodies of women both specifically and in general.

Both Maisie and Charlie are viscerally opened up so we can see inside their chests to their beating hearts, to see what really makes them tick. She confronts uncomfortable thoughts, unconventional opinions and controversial views about physicality, the corporeal body, sex, gender, intimacy, friendships, relationships and the darkest aspects of where our minds go when faced with trauma, whether that be an eating disorder, postnatal depression, sexual abuse, depression, anxiety or suicide.

But despite these weighty themes, Lighezzolo retains moments of grace, tenderness, warmth, kindness, forgiveness, loyalty and self-love that are glorious reclamations of the female self. A heart wrenching but ultimately redemptive story, beautifully captured. ...more

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One Night at Silver Lake
by Katherine Scholes (Goodreads Author)

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ONE NIGHT AT SILVER LAKE (Penguin Random House 2026) by Katherine Scholes is a fascinating insight into life in the 1960’s in the dual settings of Tanzania (gaining independence) and Tasmania. The author’s work is informed by her own experiences of g ONE NIGHT AT SILVER LAKE (Penguin Random House 2026) by Katherine Scholes is a fascinating insight into life in the 1960’s in the dual settings of Tanzania (gaining independence) and Tasmania. The author’s work is informed by her own experiences of growing up in Tanzania, the child of a European bush doctor who ran mobile clinics across the plains.

Similarly, the main character Sara is the daughter of doctors who work in the bush, and Sara, when not at boarding school, makes friends with Maasai children and sees them sporadically throughout the year while travelling with her parents. She is an independent and curious child who has adapted to the harsh living conditions. By the time she is a young adult, she is resilient, skilled and determined to live life on her terms.

But this changes when she falls in love with Richard, a mining executive, who has very different ideas of what his fair-skinned wife should be – how she should dress, her behaviour, her cooking, her socialising and her friendships. He loves her but, in the way of the times, with conditions attached.

Mostly Sara copes with these constrictions because they still live in her beloved country of birth and she frequently seizes the opportunity to hike or explore or visit her friends.

Both hope for a baby, and when it’s revealed (early on) that Richard cannot father children, his reaction is angry, overwrought and demanding. No, there will be no adoption. No, there will be no sperm donation. Not even from his own brother, who carries similar genes. Sara is disappointed, desperate to widen their family and unsure how she will cope if she is to remain forever childless.

This book was never predictable. Life-changing events occur at every turn and they were not what I expected. In particular, the choices characters made seemed unusual or out of character, but then subsequently proved to mirror their real personalities. Too much detail would be a spoiler, but there are relocations, deaths, love, loss, friendships and adventure. While Sara’s marriage fractures, her quest for motherhood leads her back to her roots of moving with the seasons like nomadic herding families on the Serengeti – a journey to Silver Lake that ends in tragedy, an encounter with a stranger she cannot forget, and the special power that she finds in heartbreak, family, hope, identity and home.

A mix of commercial and literary fiction, this book surprised me with its reveals – not twists exactly, but unexpected decisions by the characters that took the narrative to places not even on my radar. Each of these surprises is a pleasant hook that drives the narrative forward and brings the reader closer to Sara and her yearning desire.

For lovers of nature and the environment, this book is a treasure trove of imagery, research and examples of both flora and fauna native to Tanzania and to Tasmania, with questions about the indigenous inhabitants of both places. Setting is key, and Scholes writes in an evocative and tender way about landscape, relationships, physical hardship, emotional conflicts and how individuals can choose to remake their lives according to what they want rather than what they have been given.

Lots of moral and ethical questions would make this a good bookclub pick. ...more

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Frogsong
by Melissa Manning (Goodreads Author)

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I opened the first pages of FROGSONG (UQP 2026) with somewhat anxious trepidation, because how could author Melissa Manning have written a novel as wonderful as her first book SMOKEHOUSE (an impossibly good collection of interlocked short stories)?

B I opened the first pages of FROGSONG (UQP 2026) with somewhat anxious trepidation, because how could author Melissa Manning have written a novel as wonderful as her first book SMOKEHOUSE (an impossibly good collection of interlocked short stories)?

But my worries were for naught. Manning has again delivered a beautiful, skilfully rendered, lyrical, elegiac and haunting story about grief, friendship, young love, lives not lived and the agony of letting go.

Manning’s style is spare, sparse, pared back prose, almost as if she has taken out every second word (or at least every unnecessary word), and gifted the reader the outline of narrative in a simple, clean, devastating and moving language. The narrator Caro is as authentic as if she is a real person, someone we know, telling us her life story. Her tale is full of longing and regret, anxiety and love, tough decisions and careless mistakes. It’s a story of endless hope, of terrible fear, of resentment and illness, of worry and joy. It is a marvel.

Caro and her friend Danny grow up together, spending their time catching tadpoles at the local waterhole, and discover the end of childhood, burgeoning adolescence, and the responsibilities of young adulthood. Caro imagines her future will always be with Danny, especially after the promise she made to his mother.

But their braided lives become unentwined when Danny’s demons beset him and he dabbles with danger and eventually struggles with addiction. A perfect childhood in the untouched beauty of the Tasmanian wilderness becomes less haven and more constricting isolation. Caro is afforded some measure of peace when she escapes to travel in Lisbon, but her lost dreams and the pull of her unrequited childhood force her to confront some difficult truths.

This is a literary romance in the absences as much as what is present, a heartbreaking story of childhood innocence, shattered dreams and questions which have no answers. The ending will leave you yearning for more, the subtle but never entirely settled ambiguity a sweet sting in the tale. ...more

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Idaho
by Emily Ruskovich

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IDAHO (Penguin Random House 2017) by Emily Ruskovich is such a delightful, masterful, brilliant, expansive, heartbreaking jewel of a novel, and the rightful winner of the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award (decided by librarians and readers the IDAHO (Penguin Random House 2017) by Emily Ruskovich is such a delightful, masterful, brilliant, expansive, heartbreaking jewel of a novel, and the rightful winner of the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award (decided by librarians and readers the world over). This unforgettable story with a family tragedy at its heart, is conveyed to the reader mostly not through the main characters but through those at the peripheries of this family’s life, in a series of almost novellas, told from different points of view and different time periods, that together reveal the terrible events at the centre of the novel. It is a brave and unusual structure, and the perspective of looking at the tragedy from differing perspectives rather than head-on, allows the scope of the event to be greater than the sum of its parts.

The terrible, unflinching, desperate act at the heart of this book is almost too sad to contemplate: one hot August day, a family drives to the mountain to collect birch wood. The mother, Jenny, and the father, Wade, chop and stack the wood, while their two daughters June (aged nine) and May (aged six) play imaginary games and argue and drink lemonade. But then the absolutely unthinkable happens, an incident so extreme, brutal and damaging that it will change this family forever in ways they could never foresee.

Rather than show us this event directly, the author chooses other people to tell vignettes of their lives that have – in many different ways – overlapped with those of this central family. We hear from Ann, Wade’s subsequent partner in later life. We learn the story of imprisoned inmate Elizabeth. We see Wade as a young man. Jenny as a younger woman, before it all went terribly wrong. Six-year-old May. An older couple, William and Beth, the first to arrive at the horrific scene. Adam, Wade’s father. Eliot, a boy without a leg. A woman who repays a great debt. And we travel from 2005 to 2008, from1985 to 1995, from 2006 to 1999, from 1973 to 2007 to 2009 to 2011, to 2024 to 2025. In this circuitous, roundabout way, we view the central incident from many perspectives and times, each viewpoint adding more layers to the information we have about what happened and why.

Exploring themes of loss, grief, dementia, the natural world, the passing of years, incarceration, punishment, retribution, forgiveness, and unanswerable mysteries, this haunting, gripping, compassionate book is written in lyrical and spare prose, forever circling the terrible violence that occurs, and looking at it as if from a kaleidoscope of ever-changing patterns. The characters are empathetic, lonely, misunderstood, awkward, resentful, remorseful and changed. The landscape is one of great beauty but harsh circumstances. The events are irrevocable, transformative and life-changing.

I cannot recommend this novel highly enough. What an extraordinary piece of writing; the fact that it’s Ruskovich’s debut novel is an amazing feat. I believe she has just published a short story collection, Nightjar, which is going straight to my TBR list. ...more

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I Who Have Never Known Men
by Jacqueline Harpman

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What a strange, enthralling, compassionate, haunting question of a book is I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN (Penguin Random House 1995) by Jacqueline Harpman. This slim feminist dystopian volume has a simple yet indecipherable plot and is an absolute delig What a strange, enthralling, compassionate, haunting question of a book is I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN (Penguin Random House 1995) by Jacqueline Harpman. This slim feminist dystopian volume has a simple yet indecipherable plot and is an absolute delight to read. Although now 30 years old, it could easily have been published yesterday, as the themes and provocations are still relevant today.

Deep in an underground bunker, 39 women are kept in a cage, watched over by six male guards who never speak. The women must follow strict rules and are given basic provisions. They have no collective or individual memory of how they arrived there or where they’ve come from. There is no overt violence – any hint of terror is off the page. The story is narrated by the youngest woman, a girl at the time of imprisonment, too young then to recall anything of her former life. Over the years, the older women teach her what they can, but with no points of reference – no windows, no seasons, no sense of time, no animals – their teachings are limited. Electricity is plentiful but the lights go on and off in random cycles.

The young girl – nobody even knows her name – watches intently as she counts her heartbeats and tries to understand something, anything at all, about their environment and the reason they are kept imprisoned.

But one day something extraordinary happens and the women are freed, only to discover a strange world empty of people. Some wonder if they are even on earth or have been transported to another planet. The young girl becomes the leader as the women desperately and then with resignation trudge through year after year of replicated similarity.

The author raises questions about autonomy, social cohesion and teamwork, and also about our reaction to our dead.

This is such a strange and unearthly novel, beautifully written and evocative. The narrator’s thoughts are moving and ask the reader to question the very meaning of existence. Despite deprivation, a lack of comprehension and a dearth of company, the book holds a message of great hope, respect and dignity. ...more

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Bereft
by Chris Womersley

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THIS BOOK!!! BEREFT by Chris Womersley (Scribe Publications 2010) has been on my TBR pile for many years and I can’t believe it took me this long to finally read it. If you love HAMNET by Maggie O’Farrell, then BEREFT will have the same emotional eff ...more

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Dear Madman
by Edwina Shaw

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The extraordinary book DEAR MADMAN (&Also Books 2026) by Edwina Shaw is part ancestral memoir, part true crime, part family history, part mystery, part psychological examination and part sociological and cultural analysis. Touching on grief, murder, The extraordinary book DEAR MADMAN (&Also Books 2026) by Edwina Shaw is part ancestral memoir, part true crime, part family history, part mystery, part psychological examination and part sociological and cultural analysis. Touching on grief, murder, parenting, prejudice, institutionalisation, prisons, poverty, class, sibling bonds, infamy and particularly intergenerational trauma, DEAR MADMAN is the true story of a notorious crime a hundred years ago in Shaw’s family, and the blight or even curse it has left as a stain on generations of her family.

The voices in this story are powerful and authentic. We have the author herself, who has heard the story firsthand from her nana many times over the years: how her great grandfather hired a farmhand without realising he was a dangerous and violent man with a criminal past, and the risk this posed to him, his wife and their children (a son and four daughters, one of them Shaw’s grandmother). Shaw relates the chronology of her knowledge of this story and her research into the factual history through the use of Trove, government archives, institutional records and personal connections. Her voice is contemporary, wise, poignant, pragmatic and reasonable. The horror of this man and his actions have haunted her family for decades and she asks of herself whether it is ever possible to find forgiveness for someone responsible for the death of a child. In her quest, she searches deep into the man’s childhood and early life and finds not only psychological disturbance but also extreme physical illness and emotional paucity.

This leads her to write part of the book in the man’s voice. Through her careful and compassionate rendering and reimagining of his life, her research and a few scant photographs, the murderer is brought to life, his perspective accounting for a large portion of the book. Indeed, after the murder, he wrote several notes of confession to the victim’s mother: ‘Dear Madman’ he wrote (misspelling Madam), ‘I humbly confers to you for a deed of murder.’

The third point of view is third person and concerns the family and events of the time, as reimagined by Shaw from what she’s pieced together from newspaper articles, police reports, prison records and other sources. Together, the three voices combine to provide a powerful account of a troubled man, a vulnerable family and the societal forces of the time which were not up to the task of dealing with anyone with severe mental or even physical difficulties.

But the story Shaw has heard repeatedly from her nana is different to that from her great aunt, and Shaw’s mother is suspicious of the whole project. What good could come from digging into the past? How could understanding, let alone forgiveness, ever be possible?

Shaw has suffered several traumatic losses of her own and she began to wonder if untangling this story – and perhaps breaking the fabled curse – would go some way towards healing her broken family. What she discovers is transformative, unpredictable, confronting and heartbreaking.

No baby is born a killer. Murderers, rapists and other serious offenders are made so by a combination of dodgy genes, physical maladies, mental illness or psychosis, tortuous parenting, the lack of proper role models, bad luck, traumatic experiences, bad company, and a life of no consequences lacking opportunities or appropriate help. We, as a society, mould people according to how we treat them, the help we offer, the respect we show (or don’t), the prejudices we confirm, the labels we confer and the biases we sustain. Shaw explores this broad societal difficulty through the lens of this one man and his involvement with her ancestral family.

She questions, researches and probes, and tackles this difficult subject not with a sentimental attitude but rather a heart open to uncovering the truth, whatever that may be.

The story is masterfully written and well crafted. The murderer’s voice is distinct and original. Shaw does not set out to enlist pity but somewhere along the way, comprehension dawns. We see this man become what he is because of his circumstances and while that doesn’t in any way excuse his actions, it does explain them.

Shaw has carried this story since she was seven, when it was first told to her. All her adult life to this point has, I suspect, been training for the writing of this account – a dark reckoning of the links between past and present, a chilling and grisly crime tale that transforms into a story of profound tenderness and compassion.

I can only imagine the toll it’s taken for the author to compile this book, to finally set it all out on paper and release it into the world. Yet I hope it has done for her what she imagined it would – drain the festering wound and allow healing to take place.

We all have sordid stories in our backgrounds if we look hard enough. Mostly they are kept hidden because of embarrassment or pain or distress or humiliation. Rarely are they exposed to the light. Rarer still that both sides of the story are researched and presented in this way, so that victims can finally be spoken about without trauma, and perpetrators are seen also as victims.

I read this book in two breathless sittings. The mystery of who is killed propels the narrative as much as a contemporary crime novel, more so in fact, because this is personal. The more Shaw uncovers – and the more she delves deep into her psyche and the culture of the time – the more layered and fascinating this story becomes. A true triumph of a book, not least because of the author’s meditations on truth, trauma, family and forgiveness. ...more

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The Gambler (PI Vince Reid, #2)
by J.P. Pomare (Goodreads Author)

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Thriller writer JP Pomare’s latest book THE GAMBLER (Hachette 2026) is the second in a new series about Private Investigator Vince Reid, a character introduced in his previous novel THE WRONG WOMAN. Pomare’s trademark twists and surprising reveals ag Thriller writer JP Pomare’s latest book THE GAMBLER (Hachette 2026) is the second in a new series about Private Investigator Vince Reid, a character introduced in his previous novel THE WRONG WOMAN. Pomare’s trademark twists and surprising reveals again dominate this story, which is probably one of his most complex and labyrinthine plots to date.

I adore the protagonist Vince Reid, and his subtle background relationship with his partner Peyton. Pomare has created a character with a rich and layered background which has plenty of scope for further development in future novels.

In THE GAMBLER, Vince is visiting an old friend when he’s offered a fascinating case: a respected local woman opened fire at a political rally and killed a popular young university graduate, with seemingly no motive and no connection between the two women. Was it a random act of violence? Or a targeted attack? Either way, it appears to be a straightforward case and Vince takes it on thinking it will be easy money. But as he digs further into the facts, and the histories surrounding those involved, it becomes obvious that this case in anything but simple.

In fact, this is one of Pomare’s most complicated plots. He adds to the mix gambling and the mindset of compulsive gamblers; the Amish community; political intrigue; technological crime and scams; intergenerational trauma; revenge; obsession; friendship; trust; greed; and complex mathematics. These threads are introduced separately and appear at first to be disparate, but as the narrative unfolds, tenuous connections arise, and concrete revelations are discovered.

Readers of crime, and of Pomare specifically, will know what to expect in this book – many tangential threads satisfyingly coming together, lots of red herrings and clues, plenty of suspects and a pacy, page-turning story. But THE GAMBLER is as much about the why of the crime as the who and how (those questions are already answered in the opening chapter … or are they?) This twisty tale is sometimes a little difficult to follow but smart readers will pay attention to the many Easter Eggs Pomare hides along the way, and put two and two together as the story unfolds.

This book also delves deeper into personal connections, with the character of Vince Reid and his relations with others a sensitive and endearing element.

Pomare’s previous standalone 17 YEARS LATER was one of the best crime stories I’ve read in recent years, and I’m looking forward to seeing where he takes this new character Vince Reid and the situations, difficulties, challenges and experiences he foists upon him. ...more

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Department of the Vanishing
by Johanna Bell (Goodreads Author)

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DEPARTMENT OF THE VANISHING (Transit Lounge 2026) won the Tasmanian Literary Award for author Johanna Bell. This book is an eclectic mix of form, content and issues; an unusual prose poem punctuated with photographs, redacted police interviews, scien DEPARTMENT OF THE VANISHING (Transit Lounge 2026) won the Tasmanian Literary Award for author Johanna Bell. This book is an eclectic mix of form, content and issues; an unusual prose poem punctuated with photographs, redacted police interviews, scientific data, newspaper cutouts, lists, letters and handwritten notes. In her exciting and experimental style, Bell navigates species decline, climate change, bureaucracy and secret conspiracies. She explores the personal effect of someone long missing, the decline of dementia, the relationships between mothers and daughters, and between fathers and daughters. She is fascinated by bird species, particularly the Australian lyrebird. The book is an elegy to futility but also to quiet persistence.

Ava lives in a time in the near future when birdsong no longer graces our world. The silence is deafening. Her job at The Department involves rebuilding lost species and cataloguing fragments of scientific data, art, birdsong recordings and journal entries about the earth’s birdlife that, once plentiful, has gradually vanished.

This is a book with lots of white space interspersed with dense documentation and photographic evidence, all marked by date, time and place (and sometimes ‘private’, ‘discarded’ or ‘received’). The structure and form are ingeniously crafted. The prose poetry reads like a fast-moving novel, and Ava’s backstory is skilfully intertwined with the current narrative.

The story is also sensual, sexual, coarse, urgent, tender, passionate and full of lust and desire.

The lyrebird is a continual motif: its song, mimicry, plumage, habitat, mating rituals, parenting and historical significance.

For lovers of the work of James Bradley, Jane Rawson, Kris Kneen and Amanda Niehaus, this exceptionally beautiful, brilliant and bold novel asks the reader to think about birdsong, mass extinction, humanity’s mark on the planet, the value of archival material, and whether it is possible to come back from the brink. ...more

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	The Promise Seed 4.26 avg rating — 560 ratings — published 2015 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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