Invented lives

Author:  Andrea Goldsmith

Publisher: Melbourne : Scribe, 2019

Annotation: 

Invented Lives is a character-driven story about love, exile and family secrets. It is the mid-1980s when Galina Kogan leaves the Soviet Union for a new life in Australia. Once settled in Melbourne, she meets and forms a deep relationship with the elderly Morrows and their son Andrew, who has fallen for her. But her presence in their lives creates a ripple effect that will leave all of them irrevocably changed. 

Goldsmith writes of 1980s Melbourne with detailed nostalgia and produces what the Sydney Morning Herald's Louise Swinn describes as “a unique story that feels universal”.

For more information:

• Scribe (publisher)
• Goodreads
• Sydney Morning Herald

Behind the moon

Author: Hsu-Ming Teo

Publisher: Crows Nest, N.S.W.:  Allen and Unwin, 2005

Annotation: Behind the Moon is a coming of age story centred on three young misfits who grew up together in the Sydney suburbs in the 90s, and their struggles to reconcile their families' traditions and expectations with their individual identities. Justin is an only child who bears all the pressure of meeting the expectations of his Chinese-Singaporean parents, Tien Ho who never knew her African American father and grew up without her Vietnamese mother, and Nigel Gibson (Gibbo), who hates sports and struggles to relate to his Australian parents. The friends drift apart with age but a dinner party held to commemorate the death of Princess Diana brings everyone back together for an ill-fated reunion. A Kirkus review finds that "the  book embodies the  immigrant experience ... and never loses its emotional intimacy."

For more information:

• Allen & Unwin (publisher)
• Goodreads