Emily Paull

 Twice Not Shy, the second flash fiction collection from Night Parrot Press will be released on April 24th, 2021. I have three flash fiction pieces in this collection of 100 super short stories edited by Laura Keenan and Linda Martin, which will be available to preorder soon. Other contributors include Jess Gately, Susan Midalia, Gillian O'Shaughnessy and so many more exciting writers so keep your eyes out for this one.

  This review was originally published on the AU review in January 2021 My Best Friend's Murder Polly Phillips Simon and Schuster, 2021 There have been a number of big commercial thrillers which explore the dangers that hide inside ordinary homes and behind seemingly innocent faces, but none have been quite so relatable to me as the debut novel by Perth-based writer, Polly Phillips.   My Best Friend’s Murder   follows aspiring journalist Bec, who finds herself in her thirties, unmarried and still working as an assistant. Her drinking habits are sliding towards unhealthy, and to make matters worse, she’s best friends with Izzy Waverly, who always gets everything she wants. When the two women are compared side by side, Bec knows that she’s the one who doesn’t measure up. But as the book opens, things might be looking up for Bec, whose boyfriend Ed has just popped the big question. The first thing she does? Head to Izzy’s to tell her oldest and closest friend the news. Predo...

Photo by Matias North on Unsplash In 2020, despite the fact that I was finishing my Masters degree, working part-time (plus as many extra shifts as I could get) and writing a novel, I managed to read 150 books. This past week, as Perth, Peel and the South West were put into a 5-day hard lockdown in response to a new case of community transmission detected in a hotel security guard, I have read four books in five days. I was hoping for five in five, but hey, as I write this, the day is not over. In an age of smart phones and waning attention spans, this leads me to wonder how many books I could read if I wasn't always on Instagram. Currently, I have something like 365 unread books waiting for me. If I could finish a book every single day of the year, I would get through those in no time and there would be no need for me to be constantly assessing and weeding my collection, looking for items that no longer held my interest. I look at some book bloggers on social media who seem able ...