Book news

Fabulous review for Only The Wild

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Here’s an absolutely fabulous review, by Helen Eddy, of Only The Wild. Helen wrote it for the Read Plus website, which, sadly, has now ceased operations, but we wanted to highlight her wonderful review here on Eagle Books, so here it is!

Only The Wild
By Victor Kelleher
Eagle Books, 2026. ISBN: 9781764002110
Reviewed by Helen Eddy, ReadPlus

(Age: 12+) Highly recommended. Victor Kelleher has created another riveting adventure story which recalls the struggle to survive in the wilderness, at the heart of The Cave (2024), but whilst that book is set in prehistoric times, Only The Wild takes place in a future time when Antarctica has become a forested ‘Great Southland’ due to global warming, and people in countries to the north have retreated underground to escape the heat. Kelleher provides a brief timeline of the events that have led to the central conflict taking place in the Great Southland, the battle between farmers who want to make a living on this last workable continent, and the Wilders who believe the wilderness should be allowed to return to its natural state free of all harmful human development.

Fifteen year old Evan is the youngest child in one of the last farming families on the edge of the dense green forest, always alert to the risk of attack by the much hated Wilders, fierce activists intent on burning homesteads and killing their inhabitants. It is a war that Evan wants no part of. With the character of Evan, Kelleher poses a philosophical question about where the pacifist or peacemaker draws the line. Evan does not want to harm others; he wants only to live in harmony with the natural world. He belongs neither to the arms-bearing farming community nor the Wilder activists. He was born in the Great Southland and wants to stay a part of it, not owner of the land but ‘owned by the land’. Complications arise when he takes responsibility for an orphaned farmer child, and is pursued by the relentless Wilder activist Reyne.

From the very first page, Kelleher seizes the reader’s attention, and the drama that follows raises interesting questions which readily lend themselves to discussion and debate. Kelleher has found an ingenious way to engage young adult readers in the exploration of moral and ethical issues likely to confront us all at some stage in the future, questions about ways of living and responsibility for the future of the planet. Whilst the issues may be confronting, the strength of Kelleher’s novels lies is the warm and caring relationships that are depicted, and the positive presentation of respect for others and different points of view.

Publication day for Only The Wild!

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We’re excited, for today is the publication day for Victor Kelleher’s fantastic new middle-grade novel, Only The Wild! A brilliant mix of pulse-pounding adventure and thought-provoking themes, Only The Wild is a novel that will have readers on the edge of their seats.

We are proud to have published three of Victor’s earlier novels, Wanderer (2022) The Cave (2024) and The Lastling (2025) and are thrilled to publish this extraordinary new novel from one of Australia’s greatest writers for children, whose brilliant work continues to enthral readers and to break new ground.

Only The Wild, by Victor Kelleher, is available in all good bookshops around Australia. Cover and chapter illustrations are by Lorena Carrington.

Announcing the acquisition of The Medusa Problem, by Doris Brett!

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Christmas Press is delighted to announce that we have acquired world rights in The Medusa Problem, a compelling new fantasy adventure novel for middle-grade readers by award-winning writer Doris Brett. The novel will be published in October 2027 under the Eagle Books imprint and was acquired via Debbie Golvan of Golvan Arts Management.

Christmas Press publishing director Sophie Masson said, ‘We are delighted to be publishing Doris Brett’s wonderfully inventive new middle-grade novel. With its engaging characters, quirky humour, Alice in Wonderland elements, pacy plot and sharp observation, The Medusa Problem is both a page-turning magical adventure pitting its young heroine against many tricky challenges, and also a timely and thoughtful exploration of how our perspective can change when we allow ourselves to listen to, and understand, the people we scorn.’

An encounter with an ancient Greek monster on the school bus is a fair indication that your day is about to veer off track. It’s certainly the case for Elly, who finds herself plunged into a desperate rescue mission, in a country of strange and dangerous magic -where being different is feared, thinking is banned and both are likely to lead to a very unpleasant death. Elly will have to evade detection, think her way out of deadly magical traps, defeat an army of zombies, invent the internet (sort of), outwit a powerful sorcerer and travel with companions she can’t trust. Oh, and save a world. But, even harder than that, she will have to learn how to really listen and understand…

Doris Brett explains the genesis of the novel: ‘I have had the image of a girl on a bus, with hair that somehow moves by itself, for a very long time. It coalesced into The Medusa Problem a few years ago, at a time when the mythological truth of how Medusa became a monster seemed strangely relevant. In a world of increasing polarisation, where intolerance too often morphs into hatred, it seems more important than ever to rediscover the art of listening to those with whom we disagree and trying to understand their experience as well as our own, and I am thrilled to be working with Eagle Books to bring Medusa to young readers.’

photo of Doris Brett by Martin Imber

Publication day for Life and Breath!

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Today is the publication day of our new Eagle Books title, Life and Breath, a wonderful collection of short stories for upper middle-grade readers by Ursula Dubosarsky, and we have a double reason to celebrate. Because not only are we delighted to be publishing this extraordiunary collection, but we are also thrilled to be publishing it simultaneously with Roffo Court Press in the UK!

Life and Breath features fourteen stories, collected in one volume for the very first time, with the addition of notes by Ursula on each story. The stories span a wide span of themes, in Ursula’s arrestingly distinctive voice and beautifully limpid prose. It’s an amazing book, and we hope it will find its way into the hands and hearts of many, many readers.

Warm congratulations to Ursula! Many thanks and appreciation to Jon Appleton and his team at Roffo Court Press, it’s been lovely working with you! And here’s to Life and Breath!

Fabulous advance review for Life and Breath

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There’s a fabulous advance review by Anneliese Gates in Books+Publishing of our forthcoming title, Ursula Dubosarsky’s wonderful collection of short stories, Life and Breath.

Here’s a short extract from the review:

By weaving together the everyday and the fantastical, the collection never falls into the predictable, and each short story leaves its own impression.

If you are a Books+Publishing subscriber, you can read the whole review here.

Life and Breath is out in March in Australia with Eagle Books, and simultaneously in the UK with Roffo Court Press.

Announcing the joint acquisition of a fantastic Ursula Dubosarsky collection!

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Eagle Books (an imprint of Christmas Press) and Roffo Court Press (UK) are proud to announce that we have jointly acquired world rights in Life and Breath, a brilliant collection of short stories for upper middle-grade/YA readers by multi-award-winning author Ursula Dubosarsky. In a unique event, Life and Breath will be simultaneously published, in separate editions, in Australia and the UK in March 2026.

Discoveries from the past, hopes for the future – and the decisions we make on a knife edge that clarify our own sense of self. These elements inform Ursula Dubosarsky’s multi-award-winning novels and are in sharp, bright evidence in these thirteen beautifully crafted short stories, by turns poignant, funny, reflective and joyful – nearly always mercurial – previously published in anthologies and magazines but collected together for the very first time. Ursula Dubosarsky has written brand-new notes on the origins of each story.

Christmas Press publishing director Sophie Masson said, ‘This is such a special book, in so many ways—not only is it Ursula’s first collection of short stories and her first book for older readers in a while, but its publication is also the fruit of a decades-long friendship between Ursula, Jon Appleton of Roffo Court Press, and myself. At Christmas Press, we’ve previously published two of Ursula’s other books, Two Tales of Twins from Ancient Greece and Rome (illustrated by David Allan, 2014) and The Boy who Could Fly and other Magical Plays for Children (illustrated by Amy Golbach, 2019) and we are absolutely delighted to be collaborating with Ursula and Jon at Roffo Court Press on this wonderful book.’

Jon Appleton, publisher at Roffo Court Press, said, ‘A highlight of working in publishing is producing books you most want to read. I knew Ursula Dubosarsky’s short stories would be mini gems, as indeed her novels are, and so deserving to be united between covers in a brand-new publication, full of vitality and originality. It’s been exciting and rewarding working with Ursula and Sophie to bring this glorious book into being.’

Ursula Dubosarsky reflects on the book’s genesis: ‘It’s an uncanny feeling to look back over your writing life over a period of nearly 40 years. All these stories were written at very different times, for me, for publishing, for Australia and for the world. And yet, there it is, through them all, that continuous thread of something unmistakably me that’s been in my writing since childhood. I can hardly define what that something is – the writing “me”, I suppose it must be. Gathering the stories together has been like collating photographs together in an album, with all the mystery of your past, present and even future selves between the covers. I’m completely thrilled by this project – Jon, Sophie and I have known each other through all those years, warmly bonded by sincere friendship and a commitment to writing, especially writing for children and adolescents. I remember once my mother saying to me, “Ursula, someone should collect your short stories together in a book.” Well, now someone has, and I couldn’t be more grateful or honoured.’

A news article about it appeared in Books+Publishing yesterday.

Publication day for The Lastling

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Today is the publication day for our latest Eagle Books title, Victor Kelleher’s marvellous new science fiction adventure novel, The Lastling!

It’s the third Victor Kelleher title which we’ve had the pleasure and privilege of publishing, and like its predecessors, Wanderer (2023) and The Cave (2024) it’s absolutely brilliant–exciting, moving and thought-provoking, and we are thrilled to be publishing it. It’s a gorgeous production too, with striking cover and internal illustrations by Lorena Carrington, and elegant design by Authors’ Elves.

With its Android and human protagonists, The Lastling is both an extraordinary adventure set in a disturbing future, and also a timely and thought-provoking exploration of what it really means to be human.

Here’s Victor on what inspired the novel: Artificial intelligence, robotics, and the whole notion of the android have been much in the news recently, and rightly so, in light of current technology. Yet underlying this interest is a much longer-standing issue: will AI be friendly to us, or will it threaten our human world? Many novels and films have offered an answer to this question. Some, like the film Terminator, give us two possible answers – AI as both friend and mortal enemy.  So what does The Lastling add to this debate? At one level, like Terminator, it gives two answers, in the forbidding person of Brother John and the gentle figure of Guido. However, it also poses deeper questions. How does an android as gentle as Guido survive in the face of both AI and human aggression? How does he interact with someone as deeply human as Verne? And how does he out-think his own programming? Is such independence on his part even possible? And if so, is he, in some profound sense, also human? Now there’s a scary thought! And it’s that scary thought, more than any other, that inspired me to write this novel.

Congratulations to Victor on a wonderful novel which we are sure is just going to fly into the hands of eager readers!