Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly prompt hosted by Breaking the Spine where the participants tell their readers about an upcoming release they are looking forward to. This week I've picked The Long Distance Playlist by Tara Eglington.

Told primarily in instant messenger conversations, Skype, emails and texts, this is Jaclyn Moriarty's Feeling Sorry for Celia for the modern teen.

Taylor and Isolde used to be best friends - before THAT FIGHT, 18 months ago. It's been radio silence ever since - until Taylor contacts Isolde to sympathise with her breakup: the breakup that she never saw coming; the breakup that destroyed her confidence and ended her dreams of joining the National Ballet School.

Taylor's had his own share of challenges, including a life-altering accident that has brought his hopes of competing at the Winter Olympics to a halt. Isolde responds to Taylor, to be polite. But what starts out as heartbreak-themed Spotify playlists and shared stories of exes quickly becomes something more. And as Taylor and Isolde start to lean on each other, the distance between them begins to feel not so distant after all ...

A boy. A girl. A one-of-a-kind friendship. Cross-country convos and middle-of-the-night playlists. With big dreams come even bigger challenges. 

I've been following Tara Eglington's books since she first got published with the fun and witty release of How to Keep a Boy From Kissing You (followed by its fitting sequel How to Convince a Boy to Kiss You). Then came the brilliant exploration of female friendship in My Best Friend is a Goddess, so I can't wait to see how this latest novel goes. If her track record so far is anything to go by, this is going to be something special - I can't wait to get my hands on a copy!

Releasing 16th December 2019 from HarperCollins Australia

Waiting on Wednesday: New Australian Fiction

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly prompt hosted by Breaking the Spine where the participants tell their readers about an upcoming release they are looking forward to. This week I've picked Kill Your Darlings' 2019 anthology of New Australian Fiction. 

A childless couple find an abandoned baby on the beach. A twilight car accident has a man lost in the bush. Two men on the coast share an unspoken love.

A father is prosecuted by his small-town community. A young woman has a threatening first date.

A writer is terrorised by the ghosts of his fiction. Drugs drive childhood friends apart. City folk visit a room for crying.

 New Australian Fiction features brilliant writers with distinct experiences, voices and styles from all corners of Australia.


Together they showcase the strength and diversity of Australian short fiction at its best. These stories will move, entertain and enlighten you.

As a fan of the KYD magazine, I'm excited to see how this short story collection pans out - it's promising to be timely and insightful, hopefully shining the spotlight on some brilliant new talent on the writing scene!

Releasing 1st October 2019 from Kill Your Darlings

Waiting on Wednesday: The Divers' Game

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly prompt hosted by Breaking the Spine where the participants tell their readers about an upcoming release they are looking forward to. This week I've picked The Divers' Game by Jesse Ball.

From the inimitable mind of award-winning author Jesse Ball, a novel about an unsettlingly familiar society that has renounced the concept of equality—and the devastating consequences of unmitigated power. The old-fashioned struggle for fairness has finally been abandoned. It was a misguided endeavour.

The world is divided into two groups, pats and quads. The pats may kill the quads as they like, and do. The quads have no recourse but to continue with their lives. The Divers’ Gameis a thinly veiled description of our society, an extreme case that demonstrates a truth: we must change or our world will collapse. What is the effect of constant fear on a life, or on a culture?

Brilliantly constructed and achingly tender, The Divers’ Game shatters the notion of common decency as the binding agent between individuals, forcing us to consider whether compassion is intrinsic to the human experience.

With his signature empathy and ingenuity, Jesse Ball’s latest work solidifies his reputation as one of contemporary fiction’s most mesmerising talents.

I've always enjoyed short stories, novels, and even TV dramas that are just that little bit off-kilter, and make you think. I'm looking forward to seeing if this latest novel from Jesse Ball can achieve that!

Releasing 1st October 2019 from Text Publishing

Waiting on Wednesday: This is How We Change the Ending

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly prompt hosted by Breaking the Spine where the participants tell their readers about an upcoming release they are looking forward to. This week I've picked This is How We Change the Ending, the latest YA novel released by prolific Aussie author Vikki Wakefield.

I have questions I’ve never asked. Worries I’ve never shared. Thoughts that circle and collide and die screaming because they never make it outside my head. Stuff like that, if you let it go—it’s a survival risk.

Sixteen-year-old Nate McKee is doing his best to be invisible. He’s worried about a lot of things—how his dad treats Nance and his twin half-brothers; the hydro crop in his bedroom; his reckless friend, Merrick. Nate hangs out at the local youth centre and fills his notebooks with things he can’t say.

But when some of his pages are stolen, and his words are graffitied at the centre, Nate realises he has allies. He might be able to make a difference, change his life, and claim his future. Or can he?

This is How We Change the Ending is raw and real, funny and heartbreaking—a story about what it takes to fight back when you’re not a hero.

New books on the #LoveOzYA scene are always an exciting addition to my shelves, and Vikki Wakefield's novels always speak straight to the themes of family, belonging and class relationships.

Releasing 3rd September 2019 by Text Publishing

Waiting on Wednesday: Expectation

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly prompt hosted by Breaking the Spine where the participants tell their readers about an upcoming release they are looking forward to. This week I've picked Expectation by Anna Hope, a coming-of-age novel about female friendship and managing the highs and lows which come with the shift into adulthood. 

Hannah, Cate and Lissa are young, vibrant and inseparable.

Living on the edge of a common in East London, their shared world is ablaze with art and activism, romance and revelry – and the promise of everything to come.

They are electric.
They are the best of friends.
Ten years on, they are not where they hoped to be.

Amidst flailing careers and faltering marriages, each hungers for what the others have.

And each wrestles with the same question: what does it take to lead a meaningful life?

I've seen this one described as something similar to a Sally Rooney novel (another author on my must-read list!), but what really has grabbed me with Expectation is the focus on the time in our lives where the future is at its brightest and the only thing left to do is see whether it retains the glow as the years go on. Stay tuned for a review on this book after its release!

Releasing July 2019 from Doubleday