I was very impressed with Myfanwy Jones’s novel Leap. I didn’t have space to write about it in my review for The Australian, which can be read here, but what I admired about it most was the way that captured the suburbs of north Melbourne – the vibrancy and diversity of that area – there’s a very strong sense of her characters inhabiting that space. Jones captures movement and physical sensation in her characters in a way I also found very impressive, and the relationships between her characters are subtle and complex, which gives us a strong sense of them as living, breathing beings. The book is quite an achievement both at the level of language and story.
Gretchen Shirm 