Emily Paull

The Windy Season Sam Carmody Allen and Unwin, 2016 (I own a copy courtesy of the publisher) When Elliot Darling goes missing from a small West Coast fishing town named Stark, his family face a long and uncertain wait to find out what happened to him.  Only his brother, Paul, seems to go on searching for Elliot, and this search sees Paul move to Stark.  There, he takes on work as a deckhand on his cousin's fishing boat, alongside a philosophical German named Michael.  The town itself is in decline, with families who have depended on fishing to make their livelihoods for generations now facing smaller and smaller hauls each time they go out.  At the pub each night, Paul is faced with surly, sometimes frightening men, hardened by the life in Stark.  This is a world where methamphetamine, bar fights and biker gangs are not out of the question...  Paul's coming of age against this backdrop is a plot worthy of early Tim Winton, but is written with a hopeful t...

I did it!  I finally made it to ten books in one month!  This is a momentous occasion, and to top it all off, I did it whilst finishing the first semester of my postgraduate studies, with assignments to submit and everything.  I don't know if I watched less television or slept less or learned how to pause time, but I managed it and it feels glorious. (That being said, I have acquired a lot of books lately, so reading ten of them hasn't totally solved my nuclear proliferation of books.  Sigh.) In order of when I read them, here are the books I read in May! The Bird's Child  by Sandra Leigh Price I adored this book.  It was set in an era which I feel particularly drawn to (1929) and it featured vaudeville style magic, romance, and one spectacularly creepy narrator.  I reviewed this book here . The Colour of Magic  by Terry Pratchett We very sadly lost Mr Pratchett this year but Discworld will live on.  I'm a shamefully recent Di...

After Darkness Christine Piper Allen and Unwin (Australia) As the first Vogel winner in two years, Christine Piper has the weight of high expectations on her shoulders.  2013 famously saw no Vogel Award given to any entrant, judge Geordie Williamson justifying this decision on the grounds that no entry was of high enough standard to fit in with the award's terms and conditions.  Since the early 1980s, the Vogel has been a prize which searches for excellence among Australia's unpublished writers.  It was the award which gave us Tim Winton in 1982, when his book An Open Swimmer  shared the award with another writer.  A few years later it gave us Kate Grenville's Lillian's Story .  And now we have After Darkness.   In 1942, Dr Tomakazu Ibaraki is taken from his place of work in Broome and transported to an internment camp for enemy aliens at Lovedale, South Australia.  In Lovedale camp, Ibaraki-sensei's loyalty will be tested- as will his ...