Just So Stories

Random Reviews and Ramblings from Redcliffe

  • Escape from Firestone Fortress: Solve it Your Way #3 – Rachel Jackson

    Riveted Press Distributed by Simon & Schuster September 2025 ISBN13: 9781764007122 RRP: AU$ 17.99 / NZ$ 19.99 I loved Rachel’s first two Solve it Your Way titles and, of course, have also enjoyed my Q&A and meeting her on my visit to Canberra a few months ago. She is both personable and engaging, aside from…

  • Gloam – Jack MacKay

    Bloomsbury September 2025 Imprint: Oneworld ISBN: 9780861549528 RRP: $16.99 Sometimes a debut novel comes along that completely blows you away, and this would be one of those. I’m not a fan of horror, but I don’t mind a bit of creepy – this was actually quite a lot of creepy! and an enormously good read.…

  • Keeper of the Octopus – Neridah McMullin

    Walker Books Australia ISBN13:9781760659479 Australia RRP:$17.99 New Zealand RRP:$19.99 As I’ve said before, I have a fascination with octopuses with their superior intelligence and facility for extraordinary physical feats. And when you combine that with Neridah McMullin’s ability to weave a narrative of magical realism that has echoes of traditional folktales and lore, you get…

  • Pocket Potters: Little Guides to the Harry Potter Stories by J. K. Rowling.

    Bloomsbury Australia August 2025 RRP: $17.99 Oh my! These are just absolutely adorable! I have been eagerly anticipating their arrival. Each one covers a range of aspects of the given character, with some being common across all three e.g. Magic and Memories and The Last Wizarding Word (notable quotes). Let’s start with Harry! Harry Potter…

  • The Disappearing Circus – Helen Edwards/Kate Gordon

    Riveted Press July 2025 Distributed by Simon & Schuster ISBN13: 9781763526099 RRP: AU$ 17.99 / NZ$ 19.99 I have taken my time with this, both the reading of it and the writing of the review. So much so, that I was strongly reminded of my Oddity review, four years ago, when I wrote: I read…

  • Happy Anniversary Tashi!! Tashi 30th Anniversary Edition – Anna Fienberg, Barbara Fienberg, Kim Gamble

    Allen & Unwin July 2025 ISBN:9781761181450 Publisher: &U Children’s Imprint: A & U Children Thirty years and over 100 millions of sales on, Tashi is every bit as entertaining, clever, funny and brave as he ever was. I can still recall how enchanted I was on first meeting him, and knowing that the kiddos in…

  • Inkbound: Meticulous Jones and the Skull Tattoo – Phillipa Leathley

    Harper Collins Australia January 2025 While it took me a while to get to this on the review shelf, and then it’s taken me a few weeks to get the review written, it only took me two sessions to actually read this completely enthralling and wildly different fantasy. Meticulous – Metty – Jones, like most…

  • The Poisoned King: Impossible Creatures #2 – Katherine Rundell

    Bloomsbury ISBN 9781408897454 (p/b) Imprint Bloomsbury Children’s Books RRP: $18.99 (P/b) $29.99 (H/b) $15.19 ebook editions I have raved over Impossible Creatures since I first ate it up greedily and, trust me, I am not the only one. Evidence of that is in the fact that it was the Children’s Book of the Year in…

  • R.I.P. Nanny Tobbins – Lucie Stevens

    Harper Collins Australia June 2025 ISBN: 9781460766521 ISBN 10: 1460766520 $16.99 It’s one thing having a strict but kind and fair Nanny who is alive – and quite another when that Nanny is dead. Nine-year-old Albertine is a sweet child, who is without a mother but with a very loving and protective father. He is, in fact,…

  • Gregor the Overlander: #1 The Underland Chronicles – Suzanne Collins

    Scholastic Australia April 2025 ISBN: 9781761648335 RRP: $19.99 First published in 2003, well before the Hunger Games, this is a well-loved adventure/fantasy that will both intrigue, delight and, at times, freak your kiddos out. There are always rats in sewers, this we know, and there have been stories about creatures of all kinds living under cities…