Jock Serong and Kate Mildenhall in conversation

In an unmissable event, Jock Serong and Kate Mildenhall discuss the common themes in their new novels The Burning Island and The Mother Fault. These powerful novels provide urgent social commentaries on many aspects of Australian society, looking both to our past and our future, with family relationships front and centre. 

This FREE event will take place on Zoom. The Zoom meeting details form part of your ticket, emailed to you after registration. 

You can also select from some great value Event+Book combo ticket options, and we'll happily ship them anywhere in Australia for free! 

About Jock Serong's The Burning Island

A father’s obsession. A daughter’s quest.

Eliza Grayling, born in Sydney when the colony itself was still an infant, has lived there all her thirty-two years. Too tall, too stern—too old, now—for marriage, she looks out for her reclusive father, Joshua, and wonders about his past. There is a shadow there: an old enmity.

When Joshua Grayling is offered the chance for a reckoning with his nemesis, Eliza is horrified. It involves a sea voyage with an uncertain, probably violent, outcome. Insanity for an elderly blind man, let alone a drunkard.

Unable to dissuade her father from his mad fixation, Eliza begins to understand she may be forced to go with him. Then she sees the vessel they will be sailing on. And in that instant, the voyage of the Moonbird becomes Eliza’s mission too.

Irresistible prose, unforgettable characters and magnificent, epic storytelling: The Burning Island delivers everything readers have come to expect from Jock Serong. It.

Praise for The Burning Island

‘There is some kind of magic in the way Jock Serong conjures places and times and people. The Burning Island is a ripping yarn of a book; sometimes while reading I’d be sunk so deep in its adventures, and in the precision of captured moments, that if interrupted I’d rise to the surface blinking, reluctant and surprised.’  - Lucy Treloar, author of Salt Creek and Wolfe Island. 

About Kate Mildenhall's The Mother Fault

You will not recognise me, she thinks, when I find you . . . 

Mim’s husband is missing. No one knows where Ben is, but everyone wants to find him – especially The Department. And they should know, the all-seeing government body has fitted the entire population with a universal tracking chip to keep them ‘safe’.    

But suddenly Ben can’t be tracked. And Mim is questioned, made to surrender her passport and threatened with the unthinkable – her two children being taken into care at the notorious BestLife.      

Cornered, Mim risks everything to go on the run to find her husband – and a part of herself, long gone, that is brave enough to tackle the journey ahead.      

From the stark backroads of the Australian outback to a terrifying sea voyage, Mim is forced to shuck off who she was – mother, daughter, wife, sister – and become the woman she needs to be to save her family and herself.

Praise for The Mother Fault

‘Compelling and deeply human. The Mother Fault is an urgent call from a future which is at once terrifying and familiar.' Kristina Olsson, award-winning author of Shell and Boy, Lost. 

‘Brilliant. A raw, urgent, white-knuckle ride through a world only a heartbeat away’ James Bradley, author of Clade and Ghost Species.

‘Clever, political, pacy and exciting. The Mother Fault is pure diamond-edged propulsive power. Book of the year.’ Chris Flynn, author of Mammoth.

About the Authors

Jock Serong’s novels have received the Ned Kelly Award for First Fiction, the Colin Roderick Award and the inaugural Staunch Prize (UK). He lives with his family on Victoria’s far west coast.

Kate Mildenhall is a writer and teacher. Her debut novel, Skylarking, was longlisted for Best Debut Fiction in The Indie Book Awards 2017 and the 2017 Voss Literary Prize. Kate teaches creative writing to young writers and co-hosts The First Time, a podcast about the first time you publish a book. The Mother Fault is her second novel. Kate lives with her partner and two daughters in Hurstbridge, Victoria. Find out more about Kate at katemildenhall.com.