What You Don’t Know

What You Don’t Know is the perfect title for this serpentine novel, where it becomes increasingly difficult to untangle the underlying truth from the knot of strange and sinister events that surround the main character. What You Don’t Know is well plotted, with all the various strands pulling tightly to a tense and ultimately satisfying conclusion.

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Lumps and bumps, blue eyes and small heads: Laraine Stephens

Laraine Stephens first novel, The Death Mask Murders, was inspired by her work as a volunteer guide at the Old Melbourne Gaol. In the cells are displayed death masks of executed felons. This gave her the impetus for a story line: What if the psychopath in The Death Mask Murders had developed a fixation with death masks and created them as ‘trophies’ of his victims?

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Cover art for The Lost Book of Magic. Illustration of people in a street and a lion!

The Lost Book of Magic

Children’s novel. The combination of history, magic and adventure makes for a compelling read … And while the adventure is at the forefront of the story, it’s not lost on the reader that the uncertain, dark times of 1895 in many ways mirror our own.

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Revelation Beach cover art on a black and red backgrund

Revelation Beach

Revelation Beach is one of the most vivid and intense books I have read in a long time. The first few pages make a powerful statement that the rest of the book more than measures up, they also make it personal.

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From fact to fiction (and back again): Vikki Petraitis

Since her first true crime book, The Phillip Island Murder, 32 years ago, Vikki Petraitis has notched up 18 true crime books, several podcasts that have reached millions of people, and she now has two novels under her belt. The first, The Unbelieved, is being made into a TV series, Dustfall, to screen on the ABC next year – and Anna Torv stars.

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