Cassandra by Kathryn Gossow

Kathryn Gossow is a masterful storyteller who displays great insight and sensitivity in her handling of difficult themes. The result, her debut novel Cassandra, is an extraordinary and engaging coming of age tale.

On a remote farm in Queensland, Cassie Shultz feels useless. Her perfect brother Alex has an uncanny ability to predict the weather, and the fortunes of the entire family hinge upon his forecasts. However, her own gift for prophecy remains frustratingly obscure. Attempts to help her family usually result in failure. After meeting with her new genius neighbour Athena, Cassie thinks she has unlocked the secret of her powers. But as her visions grow more vivid, she learns that the cost of honing her gift may be her sanity. With her family breaking apart, the future hurtles towards Cassie faster than she can comprehend it. There is much to love in this novel. The reader is enchanted from the opening scenes, of a very young Cassie play...

When Fear Front offered to publish my first horror novel, The Cabin Sessions, a few days ago, something in my personal universe shifted, as though a cog turned and I was moving forward again.
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I am delighted to share this warm, 5 star review of my novel, A Perfect Square, from Kate Braithwaite, author of Charlatan.

“A Perfect Square is a clever, thoughtful literary novel which also manages to have a cracking plot and complex characters.
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My memoir, Lovesick, came out in 2011 to popular acclaim. I decided to re-release the book and give it a new lease of life after a friend and high school teacher told me he thought it should be much more widely read.
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In and out of juvenile detention as a youth, Leonard Ottone graduated to prison as a young man and eventually ended up in PentridgePrison (affectionately known by some as the college of knowledge).
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CHARLATAN is based on the Affair of the Poisons that scandalized Paris in 1679.



In a hovel in the centre of Paris, the fortune-teller La Voisin holds a black mass, summoning the devil to help an unnamed client keep the love of Louis XIV.
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Sydney author Martin Rodoreda, whose debut novel, Salvage, is set to take the speculative fiction scene by storm. Salvage is a work of climate fiction utterly relevant to our time, and I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy! Read on, for a fabulous interview.


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I’m honoured to be re-posting this review of The Drago Treecomposed by Jasmina Brankovich, writer, activist and social critic.


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What motivates a writer to compose a work of fiction? To entertain? To provide an escape from mundanities?

To enlighten?

To invite the reader to consider something new or ponder a fresh perspective on something old? Or to portray in fictional form real events that come alive in the imagination through the characters in a story?
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What a delight it is to read stories of historical figures passed over by history probably because they were women. An even greater delight when they are told well, as is very much the case with Melissa Ashley’s The Birdman’s Wife.


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First published in 1930, Narziss and Goldmund forms part of a profoundly insightful body of work by Hermann Hesse.


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Edited by Maria Katsonis and Lee Kofman. Published by Ventura Press.

Rebellious Daughters is a delightful read, composed of 17 true stories written by premium Australian female writers. The stories capture a period of time in the authors lives that reflects on the development of their characters, shaping and greatly influencing who they have become as adults today.
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I’m delighted to welcome to my blog, Steampunk author Felicity Banks whose debut Heart of Brass is released today! Happy Publication Day!!



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When is a book launch far more than a book launch? When you are launching the 100 Greatest Australian Singles of the ‘60s!
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The long awaited and much talked about publication, 100 Greatest Australian Singles has at last been released.
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