Tag: novels

Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town Teaser 1

With Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town (the sequel to the Aurealis Award Shortlisted Gap Year in Ghost Town) to be released in July, I’m deep in the last stages of editing. Thanks to the good people at Allen and Unwin, the story is getting tighter and pacier, coming together...

Gap Year in Ghost Town – The Sequel

Hey, everyone! We now have a title for Gap Year 2 – ‘Graveyard Shift in Ghost Town’! More spooky, fun adventures, more Anton, Rani and Bec, more ghosts, more everything! Coming, July 2019 from Allen and Unwin.  ...

Gap Year in Ghost Town

Gap Year in Ghost Town (Allen & Unwin August 2017) has a cover! Authors, naturally, are always nervous about how their precious work is going to look, but the very clever Craig Phillips has come up with an absolute winner. I love its combination of spookiness and street smarts, and...

Fantasy and Historical Fiction? The Same Thing, Really.

Bold statement – writing Historical Fiction and writing Fantasy (of certain sorts) are almost identical undertakings. A Game of Thrones and Wolf Hall? The same thing, really. Think about it. Writers of both have to introduce and explain an unfamiliar world. Writers of Historical Fiction and writers of Fantasy can’t...

Back cover reveal

And here’s the back cover for Leo da Vinci Vs the Ice-cream Domination League, with lots of teasers. The fabulous Jules Faber does the illustrations, and the book is due out from Random House Australia in August....

Leo da Vinci Vs The Ice-cream Domination League

And here it is, the cover for my next book, a zany fun adventure for younger readers. In a world very much like ours, 10 year old Leo da Vinci is an inventor, artist, dreamer, and dedicated fighter against supervillains … And don’t I just love Jules Faber’s illustration? Outrageously...

Doctor Sleep – A Masterclass in Character

Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep isn’t a perfect novel. It has inconsistencies, a few plot holes, some ‘What the …?’ moments, but they’re forgiven because King does something surpassingly well, something that drags us into the story and keeps us reading right through. Character. Stephen King does character like few...

YA/Teen Robot Reading List

In the lead-up to the publication of Machine Wars in April, I thought a little pre-reading might be in order. Helped by the intelli-swarm via Facebook and Twitter, here’s a range of books that feature our mechanical friend, the robot. For Younger/Middle Readers Norby, the Mixed-Up Robot – Isaac...

Machine Wars Back Cover Reveal

And we now have a back cover for Machine Wars, due April. In the spirit of all good back cover blurbs, read and be tantalised.                          ...

Machine Wars Cover Reveal

And here it is: the superb, stylish, sensational cover of Machine Wars, my 33rd book, due in April from Random House Australia. I love it!...