Narrelle M Harris: writer | editor | songwriter | crafter
Words are like oxygen
Katherine Kovacic has proven herself an excellent crime writer, beginning with her debut, The Portrait of Molly Dean (a fictionalised take on the real 1930 Melbourne murder of 25-year-old Dean) and its sequel, the wholly fictional Painting in the Shadows (featuring the same art historian dealer/sleuth Alex Clayton). With The Schoolgirl Strangler, Kovacic takes on true crime, detailing the Melbourne […]
» Read moreInheritance of Secrets opens with its narrator, Juliet, in the Adelaide morgue to identify the bodies of her viciously murdered grandparents, Karl and Grete Weiss. It’s the great and terrible blow that cracks her life wide and fills it with doubt, grief, fear and danger. As she and her estranged sister Lily try to understand what’s happened, and to disprove […]
» Read moreIt’s 1922 and Perveen Mistry, a lawyer from Bombay, has been called to the kingdom of Satapur to help resolve a conflict about an underage maharajah’s education. Jiva Rao’s mother and grandmother disagree bitterly on the best choice and as they’re observing purdah, Perveen, a woman, is the only lawyer who can visit them. Along with trying to understand everyone’s […]
» Read moreI discovered KJ Charles in March 2019 – a friend had raved about The Henchmen of Zenda, and when someone whose taste in books allies very closely to your own, you listen to their raves. I actually began with a few other books first, but five books later I was ready to be a lifelong reader. The Henchmen of Zenda […]
» Read moreEmily Larkin has released a new book in her wonderful Regency-era Baleful Godmother series, and is taking the series in a new direction after a series of short stories called the Pryor Prequels. The series began when a woman and her three daughters save a faerie child from drowning. It’s fae mother rewards them with wishes that will follow the […]
» Read moreThe latest book from Improbable Press gives us a piquant blend of love story, character study and spoooookiness. This Holmes/Watson tale has an original contemporary London/York setting and opens with John and Sherlock, married for several months now, on what ought to be a belated honeymoon but which John knows to be a case – a case which Sherlock said […]
» Read moreLonely Planet has been doing some lovely themed books recently, and the latest is this lush tome – In Her Footsteps (though it appears in Goodreads as The Feminist Tour). Over 30 writers contributed to the 200+ entries about influential women throughout history and across the globe. Some entries are particularly lively, and some lovely illustrations by Lauren Crow among […]
» Read moreI’ve been really enjoying some more diverse fiction, especially books with non-binary and trans characters – these are books which reflect much more of the world around me and the people I know! Among these beautifully written and fresh books are Alison Evans’ Euphoria Kids and Highway Bodies; Amanda Jette Knox’s Love Lives Here; and works by Mary Borsellino and […]
» Read moreI’ve been following Amanda Jette Knox on Twitter for a while now – she’s funny and fierce, particularly on behalf of her family. She writes often of her whole tribe, including her trans daughter and her trans wife. When Love Lives Here, her book about her family’s life, was released, I was pretty sure I’d love it based on her […]
» Read moreThe author Courtney Milan came to my attention recently as the result of some fairly unpleasant decisions (and their consequences) made by the Romance Writers of America in response to some of Milan’s robustly framed but justifiable critique on racism/racist tropes in romance (and on one book in particular). The Guardian has a summary. Not having read anything by Milan, […]
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