Between The Lines Podcast

Hi friends,

When I renewed my vows earlier this year, I wrapped up books as gifts for our guests, each with a little mystery blurb on the front. On The Remarkable Truths of Alfie Baines, I simply wrote: my favourite book of 2025.

So you can imagine how excited we were to sit down with its author, Sarah Clutton, to talk about her new novel. Even better, Sarah is joining our Book Club to discuss it with members.

The book

The Bookshop of Buried Pasts opens with Phyllida Banks, 80 years old and adored in the little Southern Highlands village of Brookbank, where her antiquarian bookshop is the heart of everything. When Phyllida is suddenly gone, her granddaughter Lottie finds a letter asking her to track down someone called Frances, and a fortune no one can explain. The trail leads all the way to Cambridgeshire, to another village bookshop with eerie similarities to their own, and to a mystery that has baffled police for fifty years.

It made us both wonder: what wild things did our nanas get up to that we’ll never know about?

We loved Phyllida. She’s curious, wise and endlessly interested in people, the kind of 80-year-old we’d all want to be friends with. Chelle fell for Sienna, a 13-year-old firecracker who keeps every conversation on its toes. And if, like Chelle, you hunt down any book set in a bookshop, this one’s for you. The bookshop itself even narrates the opening and closing chapters.

A small tip: there are a few timelines and points of view, so give it a few chapters to settle in. Once it clicks, it’s a warm, funny, hopeful mystery that’s hard to put down.

From our conversation

Sarah lives in Berrima, in a region that was Australia’s first book town. She spent months sitting with the late antiquarian book dealer Leo Berkelouw while helping with his memoir, which is how Phyllida came to be a book dealer. In early drafts, Sarah told us, Phyllida “wasn’t someone who just retires”, and once she became a book dealer the whole story fell into place.

Phyllida is based on Sarah’s own grandmother, who could make three new friends on a two-hour train trip. Phyllida also has “the knowing”, a deep intuition passed down from her herbalist grandmother. That led to a lovely conversation about how often women are taught to override their gut feelings, and Chelle shared how much it meant to see that represented on the page.

And our favourite moment? Sarah told us why she writes:

“I just wanted to roll in the heather and have ginger beer and go on a mystery... That’s what I like to try to recreate for adults.” - Sarah Clutton

Audiobook lovers: Annabelle Tudor’s narration is spectacular. She voices everyone from an 80-year-old Phyllida to a posh Englishwoman.

Read along with us

The Bookshop of Buried Pasts is our Book Club pick, and Sarah is joining members for a discussion where spoilers are finally allowed. One member has already emailed to say she did not like a certain character, and we can’t wait to unpack that with Sarah.

Book my spot

Happy reading,Leanne & Chelle

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit betweenthelinesaustralia.substack.com

Three years missing. Two sisters searching. And something in the forest that doesn’t want to be found.

In this episode, Leanne and Chelle talk with Holly Craig about her new novel Find Me, an eerie, atmospheric thriller set in the Tasmanian wilderness. When Pete vanishes on Mount Mercy, the official search is called off within weeks. Three years later, their mother’s dying wish brings estranged sisters Hallie and Gertie back to the mountain to find him. Their first stop is the Peakers, a secretive commune who were the last people to see Pete alive.

“The minute you see that monster or that person or whoever, that dread just diminishes straight away. So it’s best to leave it right to the end.” — Holly Craig

Holly tells us how she set out to write something creepier than her earlier thrillers, with creepy forest horror music playing on YouTube the whole time. She also explains why her partner’s observation about Jaws shaped the book: the scariest thing is that you never see the shark. We talk about why Tasmania’s remoteness, ancient trees and local folklore made it the perfect setting. And we hear how Holly’s agent suggested she write about sisters instead of a couple, because sisters “trigger each other all the way through your life.”

Chelle admits she read the climax alone at night, surrounded by windows. Leanne’s 12-year-old banned any more read-alouds after that giggle scene.

Don’t let the spooky vibe put you off if horror isn’t usually your thing. There’s mystery, grief, a touch of romance, and a twist we didn’t see coming.

About Holly Craig

Holly Craig grew up on boats and on Rottnest Island off the West Australian coast. That setting inspired her number one bestselling debut, The Shallows, and her second novel, The Rip. She’s also the author of the Audible Original Mayday. Holly is a former English teacher and now runs The Write Club, which she describes as Australia’s biggest writing community, helping women write their novels for publication. Her next novel is due out next year.

* Website: https://hollycraig.com/

* Instagram: @hollycraigauthor

* The Write Club: https://hollycraig.com/the-write-club/

* Buy the book: Simon & Schuster

Love talking books with authors like Holly? Join the Between The Lines Book Club to read along with us, meet authors at live events, and connect with a community of readers who see reading as self-care. BOOK MY SPOT

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit betweenthelinesaustralia.substack.com

We met Naima Brown at the Brisbane Writers Festival, where we saw her on two panels and then fangirled in the signing line. So we were very excited to keep that conversation going on the podcast.

The Cruise is Mission One in Naima’s Squad series. The squad is a global network of women who have each survived male violence. They tried to find justice “by the book” and found the systems were never built to protect them. Now they carry out missions to take down the monsters from their pasts. Bailey Collins is producing season two of a battle-of-the-sexes reality show when an audition tape arrives from Eli Murphy, the man who harmed her in high school. So she casts him, then fills the five female places with members of the squad. In other words, she stacks the deck.

In this episode we talk about:

* Why this book feels like it belongs to all women, and why Naima writes “Welcome to the squad” in every copy she signs.

* Revenge in fiction, justice in life: “In fiction, I want revenge.” Naima explains why the fantasy part of revenge fantasy is so cathartic, and why the book gives readers somewhere to direct their anger.

* Chelle’s perfect recipe: reality TV, cruising and women’s rage, finally given space after years of being told to sit still and be polite.

* The “mad woman” genre: why all of Naima’s novels, from The Shot to Mother Tongue to The Cruise, are about women who decide to blow up their lives and start over.

* Bailey, a complex, flawed heroine who is still piecing together her own memory of what happened to her.

* Protection, not just revenge, and whether forgiveness should ever replace justice.

* Telling each other the truth. We revisit a line from the festival that stayed with us: “Women protect each other when they talk about the reality of their lives.”

* Joy as part of the mission: Gianna, the host of The Cruise show, reminds the squad that “joy is the proof that we’re still here”.

Naima’s T-shirt said “full of whimsy and rage”, and that sums up this book. Get yours here. At BWF she wore one that says “Stop Killing Women”, and that’s here.

What’s next for the squad: The Honey Trap (Mission Two) is out in June 2027, and you can read chapter one at the end of The Cruise. The Mentor (Mission Three) follows in 2028.

About Naima Brown

Naima Brown is the author of The Shot, Mother Tongue and The Cruise, the first book in the Squad series.

* Instagram: @naima_brown_official

* Buy the book: Allen & Unwin

* Substack: Naima Brown

Love talking books with authors like Naima? Join the Between The Lines Book Club to read along with us, meet authors at live events, and connect with a community of readers who see reading as self-care. BOOK MY SPOT

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit betweenthelinesaustralia.substack.com

In this episode, Leanne and Chelle talk with Kimberley Allsopp about her second novel. It follows August and Noah, a Brisbane couple who have been together for over a decade. Nothing has gone terribly wrong: no cheating, no villain, no big drama. Things are just… fine. But what happens when fine isn’t enough?

Kimberley tells us why she wanted to explore what comes after the point where most rom-coms finish. We also talk about the milk. Who notices when it’s running low? Who remembers to buy more? It’s a small detail in the book that says a lot about how the mental load in a relationship so often falls to one person. Her agent asked for less milk talk, and Kimberley refused.

Kimberley is also very funny. She tells us about a possum that ate her lemon before she could photograph it for publication day, and about how hard it is to come up with book titles that don’t sound like Taylor Swift songs.

And Chelle shares her favourite line from the book, which had us both nodding: “There was never a break from being a woman.”

About Kimberley Allsopp

Kimberley is the author of Love and Other Puzzles and Rise and Shine. She has worked in bookselling and publishing since 2008 and is a campaign manager at HarperCollins. She lives in Brisbane.

* Instagram: @kimberleyallsopp

* Buy the book: Booktopia

Read along with us

Want to talk books with authors like Kimberley? Join the Between The Lines Book Club to read along with us, meet authors at live events, and connect with a community of readers who see reading as self-care. BOOK MY SPOT

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit betweenthelinesaustralia.substack.com

What do we inherit from the world and the people in it, and what do we do with it? In this episode, Leanne and Chelle talk with Ellena Savage about her debut novel, The Ruiners.

Pip is a university dropout working at a Melbourne lobster shack. When her long-absent father dies and leaves her $50,000, she and her boyfriend Sasha, an ambitious young scholar, buy a run-down house on a struggling Greek island. The island doesn’t turn out to be the dream they imagined.

"I wanted it to feel like a dinner party with too many people talking and too much food." — Ellena Savage

Ellena explains why the book was almost called Mummy, and why “the ruiners” covers everyone from her hapless late-twenties characters to the corporations and politicians who shape our lives. We talk about Pip’s quiet refusal to chase ambition, Sasha’s defences against his own feelings, and why Ellena wanted the novel to be loud and maximalist instead of quiet and minimal. We also get into what she saw on real Greek islands: landfills, seasonal work, and the gap between holiday fantasy and local life. She shares why recycling is a bigger political issue than our own good habits, and why small local action still matters.

Plus: why there’s a lobster on the cover. (Read the book to find out!)

About Ellena Savage

Ellena Savage is an Australian writer and the author of the critically acclaimed essay collection Blueberries. Her stories and essays have been widely published and supported by grants and residential fellowships. The Ruiners is her first novel, published in Australia, the US and the UK.

* Website: https://ellenasavage.com/

* Instagram: @rarrsavage

* Buy the book: Simon & Schuster

Love talking books with authors like Ellena? Join the Between The Lines Book Club to read along with us, meet authors at live events, and connect with a community of readers who see reading as self-care. BOOK MY SPOT

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit betweenthelinesaustralia.substack.com

How do friendships survive when the people we love are experiencing the very thing we're desperately longing for, avoiding, grieving or questioning?

In this episode of Between The Lines, we're joined by New Zealand actor, journalist, playwright and author Elisabeth Easther to discuss her novel Seed.

The story follows four women navigating very different experiences of fertility, pregnancy and motherhood. Hilary desperately wants a baby. Maggie is happily navigating life as a single mother. Shelley is returning to work after having two children. And Virginia, who has spent her career caring for other people's babies, suddenly decides she wants one of her own.

Their lives may look very different, but their experiences collide in ways that are funny, messy, uncomfortable and deeply human.

Elisabeth shares how Seed grew from her own experiences of pregnancy loss and fertility treatment, alongside the very different reproductive experiences of women around her. While she was trying desperately to become pregnant, friends were experiencing unexpected pregnancies, miscarriage and abortion. Some felt unable to tell her what was happening in their own lives because they wanted to protect her.

That experience planted one of the most compelling ideas in the novel: even among close friends, the things we don't say to protect one another can sometimes create distance instead.

We talk about how fertility can completely change the dynamics of friendship, the strange transition from spending years trying not to become pregnant to suddenly desperately wanting pregnancy to happen, and the enormous variety of experiences hidden behind the seemingly simple question of whether someone wants children.

And despite the subject matter, Seed is also very funny. Elisabeth brings warmth and humour to experiences that are complicated, painful and sometimes absurd.

In this episode we discuss:

• The personal fertility experiences that inspired Seed

• Pregnancy loss and Elisabeth's experience of fertility treatment

• The many different ways women experience pregnancy and motherhood

• Why friends sometimes hide difficult news in an attempt to protect each other

• How fertility and parenting can change friendships

• Comparing ourselves with friends whose lives have taken different paths

• The complicated politics of parenting and even playdates

• Why humour belongs alongside grief and difficult experiences

• Writing four women whose lives and choices are very different

• Why the characters don't need identical happy endings

• How Seed travelled from novel to award-winning play and back to novel again

• Elisabeth's experience narrating the audiobook herself

• The value of editorial feedback and allowing a story to change

• Why authentic characters need flaws, uncertainty and hope

Seed is a funny, compassionate and refreshingly honest exploration of friendship, fertility and the enormous gap between how we imagine our lives will unfold and how they actually do.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit betweenthelinesaustralia.substack.com

Is it ever too late to discover a different version of yourself?

In this episode of Between The Lines, we're joined by Australian author Mikki Brammer to discuss her wonderful new novel, Good Joy, Bad Joy.

For more than eighty years, Joy and Hazel have been best friends. But while Hazel has lived boldly and adventurously, Joy has spent her life doing what was expected of her: being a devoted wife, loving mother and good neighbour.

When Hazel is given only months to live, Joy begins to wonder whether playing it safe has meant missing out. What starts with a determination to live a little more boldly soon involves mischief, petty crime and a very late coming of age.

But underneath all the fun is a deeply thoughtful story about friendship, ageing, identity and the ways we can continue to change throughout our lives.

Mikki describes the novel as an ode to lifelong friendship, very late bloomers and the thrill of dabbling in a little mischief. We talk about the great romance of platonic love and the friends who don't just complement us, but show us parts of ourselves we haven't yet discovered.

We also explore Joy's relationships with her husband and daughter, and the realisation that a lifetime spent avoiding conflict hasn't necessarily protected her relationships. Instead, saying the difficult things may be exactly what allows those relationships to deepen.

In this episode we discuss:

• Joy and Hazel's extraordinary eighty-year friendship
• Why Mikki wanted to write about the great romance of platonic love
• Being a late bloomer and having more than one "coming of age"
• The difference between living through someone else's adventures and discovering what you're capable of yourself
• How our experiences with our own parents can shape the way we parent
• Conflict avoidance and why keeping the peace doesn't always create closeness
• Joy's unlikely friendship with her neighbour Rowan
• Ageing, invisibility and the boxes society places people in
• Challenging our assumptions about other people
• Regret as an invitation to change rather than something simply negative
• Why small, everyday regrets can matter more than the grand ones
• The idea of being "cautiously reckless"
• Why a quiet life can be every bit as meaningful as one lived loudly
• Mikki's first novel, The Collected Regrets of Clover, and the themes connecting the two books

This is a conversation about friendship and ageing, but ultimately it's about possibility: remaining curious about ourselves, other people and the lives we might still choose to live.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit betweenthelinesaustralia.substack.com

What happens to the parts of ourselves we put aside when we become who everyone else needs us to be?

In this episode of Between The Lines, Leanne is joined by author and psychologist Lauren Keegan to discuss her haunting historical novel, The Woman in the Seal Skin.

Set on the remote Orkney Islands in 1695, the novel follows Mali, a young woman raised on stories of selkies: shape-shifting women who shed their seal skins to walk on land. Mali has always done what is expected of her. Now married and expecting her first child, her life appears safe and predictable. But beneath it all is a yearning for the sea and for a part of herself she has never been allowed to fully know.

Lauren shares how traditional selkie folklore inspired the novel, particularly the story of a woman whose seal skin is stolen, trapping her on land as a wife and mother until she eventually reclaims it and returns to the sea.

From there, our conversation explores something that will feel familiar to many women: the tension between loving the people and roles in our lives and still yearning for something that belongs entirely to ourselves.

We talk about motherhood and identity, the judgement placed on women who pursue their own needs, and why having something that brings us back to ourselves can be so important.

We also explore the darker side of folklore. Who gets to tell the story? Who benefits from the version that survives? And what happens when stories about women are used to frighten them, control them or keep them small?

In this episode we discuss:

• The selkie folklore that inspired The Woman in the Seal Skin
• Why Lauren chose Orkney in 1695 as the setting
• Motherhood and the yearning to retain a sense of self
• The impossible judgement women can face whether they prioritise their children or themselves
• Why our passions don't need to serve anyone else to be worthwhile
• Female oppression, violence and the ways stories can be used to control women
• How folklore can help communities explain loss, tragedy and things they don't understand
• The sea as a metaphor for emotion, thought, freedom and wildness
• Bessie as an outsider, healer and woman who has embraced her own wildness
• Lauren's work as a psychologist in perinatal and infant mental health and how her interest in women's experiences connects with her writing
• The relationship between nature, folklore and human experience across Lauren's novels

This is a beautiful conversation about motherhood, identity and the parts of ourselves that continue calling to us, even when life has taught us to keep them quiet.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit betweenthelinesaustralia.substack.com

What does it mean to build a home in a country that isn't your own?

In this episode of Between The Lines, we're joined by author Tyree Barnette to discuss his powerful memoir, Stolen Man on Stolen Land.

After moving from North Carolina to Sydney, Tyree expected Australia to be familiar enough to feel like home. Instead, he found himself seeing both countries through a completely new lens. As a Black American living in Australia, he reflects on migration, race, belonging and identity with remarkable honesty, curiosity and compassion.

Rather than offering easy answers, Tyree invites readers to sit with complexity. He shares what surprised him most about Australian culture, the similarities and differences between race relations in Australia and the United States, and how learning about Indigenous Australian history transformed his understanding of the country he now calls home.

At its heart, Stolen Man on Stolen Land is a deeply personal story about leaving one home, finding another, and recognising that identity is shaped not only by where we come from, but by how willing we are to listen, learn and grow.

In this episode we discuss:

• Tyree's journey from North Carolina to Sydney
• The joys and challenges of migration
• Race, identity and belonging across two countries
• Learning about Australia's Indigenous history
• The complexity of comparing Australia and the United States
• Why curiosity and empathy are more powerful than certainty
• Writing memoir with honesty, vulnerability and humour
• Finding home while holding space for difficult conversations

This is a thoughtful conversation about identity, perspective and what happens when we begin to see both ourselves and our country through someone else's eyes.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit betweenthelinesaustralia.substack.com

What happens when one place witnesses two extraordinary moments in history?

In this episode of Between The Lines, we're joined by bestselling Australian author Mary-Lou Stephens to discuss The Hobart Hotel, a dual-timeline historical novel inspired by the remarkable history of the Rest Point site in Hobart.

Travelling between pre-war Tasmania in 1939 and the opening of Australia's first legal casino in 1973, the novel follows two women whose lives become unexpectedly connected across time. As they navigate love, ambition, family expectations and life-changing decisions, the story explores how ordinary people are often at the heart of history's biggest moments.

Mary-Lou shares the fascinating real-life events that inspired the novel, why she was drawn to the controversy surrounding Australia's first casino, and how she balances historical fact with compelling fiction. We also discuss writing complex female characters, the joy of uncovering forgotten stories, and why setting can become a character in its own right.

In this episode we discuss:

• The real history behind Australia's first legal casino
• Why the Rest Point site inspired an entire novel
• Writing dual timelines across 1939 and 1973
• Creating ordinary women who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances
• Researching Tasmanian history and bringing it vividly to life
• Exploring controversial historical events without judging either side
• How travel, place and history continue to inspire Mary-Lou's writing
• The enduring appeal of historical fiction rooted in real events

Whether you love Australian historical fiction, dual timelines, or stories about resilient women finding their own path, this conversation offers a fascinating glimpse into the research and storytelling behind The Hobart Hotel.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit betweenthelinesaustralia.substack.com