Musings
Welcome to my Musings
My Musings are for readers, writers and those who love the magic of words. You’ll find snippets on a variety of topics: inspirational places and people, suggestions for readers, tips for writers, my journey as a writer, insights and special previews.
Melbourne Chill to Icelandic Thrill
I’ve recently swapped my summer sandals for woolly socks and winter boots, having returned to Melbourne after time in the Northern Hemisphere. This relocation to chillier climes has reminded me of...
Research, AI and Historical Fiction
For the past eleven months, I’ve been hibernating in my study, working on the latest draft of my second book. I’ve immersed myself in the contrasting worlds of fin-de-siècle Vienna and post-World...
Building Layers
I’m currently working on the latest draft of my second novel, which is a dual timeline set in post-WWI London and fin-de-siècle Vienna, featuring the art and life of Gustav Klimt, and focusing on...
Chasing Your Dreams à la Don Quixote
“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams – this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness – and maddest of all:...
It is Solved by Walking
My mother and I recently strolled through Cloudehill Gardens in Olinda, enjoying the early autumn leaves on maples and liquidambars, water droplets glistening on lamb’s-ear, glazed blue pots filled...
Renewal
A lemon-scented eucalyptus stands in the centre of my Melbourne backyard, towering thirty-five metres over the garden, its foliage filling the air with a tangy citrus scent. When spring arrives, the...
Write What You Know
Years ago, when I first dabbled with the idea of writing fiction, I read Mark Twain’s advice to ‘write what you know’. However, I didn’t want to write about a former public relations manager, who...
Living Slow
During the past two months, I’ve experienced one of the busiest times of my life. Coordinating an overseas move to repatriate to Australia after sixteen years in Europe, and continuing to work while...
What I'm Reading
July/August 2026
The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
The Girl They Left Behind by Roxanne Veletzos
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Addition by Toni Jordan
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Daughters of Batavia by Stefanie Koens
In the Margins by Gail Holmes
Ghost Cities by Siang Lu
May/June 2026
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader
Perspectives by Laurent Binet
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
March/April 2026
The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo
North Woods by Daniel Mason
Wake by Anna Hope
Islands of Mercy by Rose Tremain
The Ninth Child by Sally Magnusson
January/February 2026
The Artist by Lucy Steeds
Three Days in June by Anne Tyler
Stolen Beauty by Laurie Lico Albanese
The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce
Nine Days by Toni Jordan
The Last Gift by Abdulrazak Gurnah
What I read in 2025
Larchfield by Polly Clark
The Language of Food by Annabel Abbs
September/October 2025
Book of Colours by Robyn Cadwallader
The Assault by Harry Mulisch
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
The Wild Geese by Ogai Mori
The Director by Daniel Kehlmann
Devotion by Hannah Kent
July/August 2025
Clear by Carys Davies
The Sea by John Banville
The Names by Florence Knapp
The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Foster by Claire Keegan
The Wolf Tree by Laura McCluskey
May/June 2025
Geneva by Richard Armitage
Enchanted Islands by Allison Amend
Him by J D Kirk
Butter by Asako Yusuki
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
Stars Over Sunset Boulevard by Susan Meissner
Two Daughters by Alison Edwards
The Queen and I by Sue Townsend
March/April 2025
James by Percival Everett
Greek Lessons by Han Kang
The Beauties by Lauren Chater
This is Happiness by Niall Williams
Rapture by Emily Maguire
Water by John Boyne
My Brilliant Sister by Amy Brown
The Mark by Fríða Ísberg
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
January/February 2025
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Painter’s Daughters by Emily Howes
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
The Trinity Six by Charles Cumming
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
What I read in 2024
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Valley by Chris Hammer
The Story Thief by Kyra Geddes
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
The Hummingbird Effect by Kate Mildenhall
September/October 2024
Four Seasons in Japan by Nick Bradley
Tilda is Visible by Jane Tara
1984 by George Orwell (Audible adaption)
The Gentleman from Peru by André Aciman
The Women by Kristin Hannah
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Doll’s Eye by Leah Kaminsky
July/August 2024
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Good Wife of Bath by Karen Brooks
The Vanishing Point by Andrea Hotere
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
The Midwife by Tricia Cresswell
May/June 2024
Salonica Burning by Gail Jones
The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies by Alison Goodman
The Maiden of Florence by Katherine Mezzacappa
The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier
March/April 2024
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
The Cloisters by Katy Hays
The Winter Palace by Paul Morgan
It Takes a Town by Aoife Clifford
Restoration by Rose Tremain
January/February 2024
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding by Holly Ringland
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani
The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh
What I read in 2023
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Yellowface by R F Kuang
The Naturalist of Amsterdam by Melissa Ashley
The Winter Dress by Lauren Chater
September/October 2023
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst
The Lie by Helen Dunmore
Two Women in Rome by Elizabeth Buchan
The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks
Devil’s Fjord by David Hewson
July/August 2023
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson
Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life & Sudden Death by Laura Cumming
Limberlost by Robbie Arnott
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant
The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
May/June 2023
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
Kindred by Octavia Butler
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
March/April 2023
Spies by Michael Frayn
One Illumined Thread by Sally Colin-James
Gulliver’s Wife by Lauren Chater
Persuasion by Jane Austen
January/February 2023
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Remarque
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
The House of Fortune by Jessie Burton
I, Mona Lisa by Natasha Solomons
The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig
Headlong by Michael Frayn
What I read in 2022
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
The Tea Lords by Hella Haasse
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler
The Painted Kiss by Elizabeth Hickey
The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
The Flames by Sophie Haydock
The World of Yesterday: Memoirs of a European by Stefan Zweig
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont
September/October 2022
Heat Wave by Penelope Lively
The Book of Form & Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna
Summer by Edith Wharton
The Europeans by Henry James
The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee
Haven by Emma Donoghue
So Big by Edna Ferber
The Last Painting of Sara De Vos by Dominic Smith
July/August 2022
The Dressmaker by Beryl Bainbridge
The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams
The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie
The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn
Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
How It All Began by Penelope Lively
The Undertaking by Audrey Magee
May/June 2022
The Key in the Lock by Beth Underdown
Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
The Curlew’s Eye by Karen Manton
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland
Sell Us the Rope by Stephen May
March/April 2022
A Song for Summer by Eva Ibbotson
Matrix by Lauren Groff
The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
A Narrow Door by Joanne Harris
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
January/February 2022
The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson
Address Unknown by K. Kressmann Taylor
The Assistant by Kjell Ola Dahl
Still Life by Sarah Winman
The White Book by Han Kang
The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun
A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville
The Hiding Game by Naomi Wood
Widowland by C. J. Carey
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
What I read in 2021
The Rabbit Factor by Antti Tuomainen
The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler
Snow Country by Sebastian Faulks
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
Mrs England by Stacey Halls
The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow
Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce
Gigi and The Cat by Colette
September/October 2021
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans
No Honour by Awais Khan
The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
July/August 2021
The Weekend by Charlotte Wood
Orkney by Amy Sackville
The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Force of Nature by Jane Harper
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
The Painter by Will Davenport
May/June 2021
Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak
The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré
The Didomenico Fragment by Amor Towles
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce
Markievicz: A Most Outrageous Rebel by Lindie Naughton
March/April 2021
Love is Blind by William Boyd
The Unforgetting by Rose Black
Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim
Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
January/February 2021
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
The Man Within by Graham Greene
The Break by Marian Keyes
Vox by Christina Dalcher
The Telling by Jo Baker
Dear Mr M by Herman Koch
Snow Blind by Ragnar Jónasson
What I read in 2020
The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin
The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley
The Waiter by Matias Faldbakken
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud
September/October 2020
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Pew by Catherine Lacey
The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
The Susan Effect by Peter Høeg
The Gypsy Bride by Katie Hutton
The Good People by Hannah Kent
The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
July/August 2020
Heartburn by Nora Ephron
The Foundling by Stacey Halls
A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier
The Dark Circle by Linda Grant
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
May/June 2020
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Lie With Me by Philippe Besson
March/April 2020
Out of Egypt by André Aciman
The Carer by Deborah Moggach
The Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Nutshell by Ian McEwan
January/February 2020
When All is Said by Anne Griffin
A History of the World in 21 Women by Jenni Murray
Happiness for Humans by P Z Reizin
The Hypnotist’s Love Story by Liane Moriarty
The Magus by John Fowles
Mrs Dalloway by Virgina Woolf
What I read in 2019
November/December 2019
Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene
Midnight Blue by Simone van Vlugt
Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls
Longbourn by Jo Baker
The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg
September/October 2019
Old Filth by Jane Gardam
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal
Our Friends in Berlin by Anthony Quinn
The Innocents by Francesca Segal
The Wonder by Emma Donoghue
July/August 2019
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
The Familiars by Stacey Halls
After the Party by Cressida Connolly
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
This Must be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
May/June 2019
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting
Stronger Than Skin by Stephen May
Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett
Tin Man by Sarah Winman
The Good Liar by Nicholas Searle