Blog posts

Burnt Out is now on Goodreads.com!

Yes yes it is! Here’s my review. Head over and smash that ‘Want to read’ button. Burnt Out by Victoria BrookmanMy rating: 5 of 5 starsPreorder here!Burnt Out is about a struggling, story-less author who loses everything in a devastating Blue Mountains bushfire and suddenly finds national fame and commercial success as a result. But how much is she willing to morally compromise to maintain this success? Set in contemporary…

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Burnt Out – where is it up to?

If you follow me on social media, you would have seen that in November last year I signed a deal with HarperCollins Australia for the publication of my debut novel Burnt Out. We now have a firm release date for this beauty, which is January 5, 2022. But why did it take so long? I’ve written the book, right? Isn’t it just a case of hitting print? Here is a…

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Review: How to Mend a Broken Heart (Rachael Johns)

Summer in New Orleans means hot days, long nights, spooky stories and surprising new beginnings.Felicity Bell has struggled to move on after her marriage broke down. Her ex has found love again, her children have their own lives, and it’s beginning to feel like her only comfort comes from her dog and her job as a taxidermist. So when Flick gets an offer to work in New Orleans for a…

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Review | The Valley of Lost Stories

Vanessa McCausland’s latest novel, The Valley of Lost Stories (HarperCollins, 2020), is a beautifully written story which takes place largely in a creepy abandoned mining town. Four women and their children are invited to the beautiful but remote Capertee Valley, west of the Blue Mountains.Once home to a burgeoning mining industry, now all that remains are ruins slowly being swallowed by the bush and the jewel of the valley, a…

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Book Review | Lapse (Sarah Thornton)

Lapse (Text Publishing, 2019) is set in the sleepy country town of Katinga, where protagonist Clementine Jones is coaching the local AFL team while she wrestles with some dark, dark secrets from her shady past.

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Don’t let IWD die

In February 2012 I faced an impossible choice: watch the Sydney International Women’s Day March, an institution of local feminist history and activism, die from neglect, or step up and organise it by myself. It was very short notice. The people who had run the march very well the previous year, a Sydney feminist collective, had decided that organising a march was either too hard or not worth their time,…

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Five Norwegian shows you can stream in Australia right nå

I’ve always been very proud of my Norwegian background, and lately I’ve been learning, speaking, cooking, reading and watching Norwegian whenever I can. I’m not much of a fan of Nordic Noir, so I’ve had to dig a little. Here are some of my favourites, all of which are available to watch in Australia at the moment. Twin (SBS OnDemand)A bit of a freaky Friday scenario, but in a deep…

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Bushfires and the summer holidays that never were

Down the back, in a gently sloping part of our yard, sits our fairy tree, a magical grevillea adored by kids and fairy wrens alike. A “prize tree” my brother-in-law called it. It’s always been a bit wonky but that was part of its charm. We planted some seaside daisies next to it for the fairies, and later zinnias and bunny ear succulents. The past few months, however, the tree…

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Review | The Bell in the Lake (Lars Mytting)

The Bell in the Lake (Hachette, 2019, trans. Deborah Dawkin) is the latest novel from acclaimed Norwegian author Lars Mytting. The story is set in rural Norway in 1880, which lags about fifty years behind the cities of Europe with their electric lights and medicine, and which is also suffering both a population boom and mass-emigration to places like North America and Australia. The tale centres on an ancient stave…

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Buccarumbi

It’s barely a year since the last fire went through my aunty’s neck of the woods, consuming everything in its path – all their sustainably farmed crops that they’d worked so hard to tend, their very livelihood, all of it gone. Back then the fire stopped just a metre from their home. They were lucky. This time they’ve lost a caravan and god knows what else. Right now my aunty…

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How to hack a Coles mudcake hack

The internet says that the best cake hackers use a “cheap plastic ruler” to smooth it all out, so get confident, baby. Cheap plastic ruler! I used to use one of those at school! Therefore this cake is doable!

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Review | Ballerina (Netflix) – Rated P for Patriarchy

I generally try to avoid showing my kids overly gendered, patriarchal rubbish in films and tv shows that are aimed towards little kids, particularly little girls. But then I came across this one. Summary: An otherwise promising film about a girl who pursues her interests, pushes back against bullies, works really hard, wins a fierce competition, outruns a homicidal maniac and achieves her dream of becoming a ballerina on the…

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Uh, hands off my mummy wine.

It’s school holidays, so prepare yourself for an avalanche of experts expressing their concern about mothers drinking wine! A few days before holidays officially began, as I dragged my kids away from yet another kids carousel that I “didn’t have coins for” (they have PayPass now but I’ll never give in, NEVER!), I came across this comical ad: It’s almost like they know! They can hear the clinks from their…

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Bluey: the kids’ show we’ve been waiting for

I’ve always taken a keen interest in children’s programming. As an eight-year-old, I wrote a very sternly worded letter to the ABC’s Managing Director because they’d cancelled my beloved Victor & Hugo (can’t remember what the show was about exactly, but damn I cared…). Of course now that I’m three kids in and often finding myself intellectually under-stimulated, I’ve had hours and hours to pay attention to what our national broadcaster…

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