"Sophisticated teen readers will be wowed by this gorgeous, tension-filled novel, but its more natural audience may be adults. (Fiction. 13 & up)"
The arrival of two wealthy boys to a working-class neighborhood brings the strained intensity present in both theirs and another home to a boil in this latest from Hartnett, first published in 2014 for adults in her native Australia.
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"Mystery and history dance a mesmerizing waltz in this poignant, thoroughly entertaining novel that shows how '[t]he past lives everywhere.' (Historical fiction. 11-14)"
No matter how far north of London the Lockwoods travel, they can't escape the ravages of World War II.
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"A real slice of family life, the sweet with the bitter. (Fiction. 5-8)"
Sadie and Ratz, Hannah's menacing hands, help her to handle her sibling rivalry in this piercingly intelligent foray into chapter books by much-awarded teen author Hartnett.
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"Deeply discomfiting and artful in its use of language, this unusual and moody chronicle of Plum's horridly awkward adolescence will captivate sophisticated readers, but it likely won't be for everyone. (Fiction. 14 & up)"
Lush with a melancholy beauty, this intensely introspective novel focuses on the experiences of 14-year-old Plum as she leaves behind the quiet ease of childhood and steps into the cacophony of her teen years in 1980s Australia.
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"The relative brevity of the story belies the depth it encompasses; it's a richly crafted tale-within-a-tale, worthy of repeated reading. (Fiction. 12 & up)"
Told in gorgeous prose that reads more like poetry, the elderly Matilda relates the story of her life to a young boy she finds in her parlor one day.
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"Hartnett's powerful imagery and her inimitable deftness with language lift this multi-genre work high off the ground. (Historical fiction. 10-14)"
Marcelle and Coco, "two skinny, flash-eyed little girls, wild as kittens born under stables," aged ten and eight respectively, discover a blind British soldier, an army deserter, in the woods near their French village.
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"Sophisticated young readers will be awed by the delicate, measured, heartbreaking portrait that emerges. (Fiction. YA)"
A literary psychological thriller, hauntingly told, of a lonely, ostracized boy who "since childhood had been building a wall meant to protect [him] from the worst of the harm."
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"It's a quiet, complex work, whose themes of sacrifice and redemption work their way throughout; if some characters are little more than symbols, readers will nevertheless find it a memorable, haunting experience. (Fiction. YA)"
Satchel O'Rye, 23 and going nowhere fast, lives with his parents in a dying Australian town.
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"If the novel doesn't quite live up to the standards it sets for itself, it's only that those standards are very high. (Fiction. 13+)"
An ambitious novel by the author of Wilful Blue (1994) about a family that runs a farm-cum-trailer park in Australia, although the tale would be just as at home in the rural US.
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