Page Turners with The Nile

In this episode, John is joined by global bestseller Michael Robotham, whose books have sold over 8.5 million copies worldwide. Michael’s latest novel Tell Me Something True is remarkably the bones of the first novel he wrote, 40 years ago. Previously known as Blessed are the Meek, a twenty-something year old Robotham missed out on publication by one vote at an acquisition meeting, and left the manuscript in a bottom drawer.

Now hugely established, a global phenomenon and having his books adapted to screen - Robotham reimagined his 22 year old self’s novel, and brings it back to life as Tell Me Something True. In a candid conversation, John and Michael break down his experiences having his loyalty and success in Australia questioned, why it took him over a decade to write another book after his first, and how his experiences as a journalist and ghost writer have shaped his career today.

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Shop Tell Me Something True: https://thenile.shop/TellMeSomethingAU

Shop More Michael Robotham: https://thenile.shop/MichaelRobothamAU

Follow Michael:
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Books by Michael Robotham:

The Suspect (2004)
The Drowning Man (2005)
The Night Ferry (2007)
Shatter (2008)
Bombproof (2008)
Bleed for Me (2010)
The Wreckage (2011)
Say You’re Sorry (2012)
Watching You (2013)
If I Tell You... I’ll Have to Kill You (2013)
Life or Death (2014)
Close Your Eyes (2015)
The Secrets She Keeps (2017)
The Other Wife (2018)
Good Girl, Bad Girl (2019)
When She Was Good (2020)
When You Are Mine (2021)
Lying Beside You (2022)
Storm Child (2024)
The White Crow (2025)
Tell Me Something True (2027)

In this episode, John is joined by International Bestselling Author Holly Ringland. Holly is best known for her captivating novels, The Lost Flowers of Alice Heart and The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding, as well as her National Bestselling Non-Fiction book The House That Joy Built. Holly’s new novel The World Beneath her feet is a story of homecoming, belonging, and the land that made us.

John and Holly discuss her prior success and how it strays from the experiences of most Australian homegrown authors, where inspiration strikes her and a little bit about her time living in England. Holly is a spectacular storyteller, so this episode is a treat.

Books Mentioned:
The Lost Flowers of Alice Heart (2019)
The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding (2023)
The House That Joy Built (2024)
The World Beneath Her Feet (2026)

Join us for a bonus episode of Page Turners, where Stacey sits down with David Schnauer for a casual Fireside chat. New Zealand once ranked among the world’s most prosperous nations. Not any longer. David’s book Uncomfortable Economics shows that New Zealand’s underperformance is not inevitable. It is the result of choices - cultural and political - that can be changed.

Stacey and David discuss their outlook on the New Zealand economy, how mindset can be changed to care about economics just as much as the All Blacks, and that the true end-game isn’t the short term gains of subsets of the community, its the greater quality of life for all New Zealanders.

In this episode, John sits down with Bestselling author of Sorrow and Bliss, Meg Mason. Meg shares details into her writing process (which often involved the discarding of full novels), some of the themes involved in her new novel Sophie, Standing There and how she convinced Elizabeth Strout to feature as a named character in the book.

John and Meg walk through their late in life journeys into reading, and spend a little bit of time nerding out over literature, Middlemarch, and the occasional exclusive nature of the literary world.

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Shop Sophie, Standing There: https://thenile.shop/SophieStandingAU

Shop More Meg Mason: https://thenile.shop/MegMasonAU

Follow The Nile Australia:
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In this episode, our Head of Books New Zealand, Stacey Collins steps into the host spot to interview a fellow Kiwi, romantasy blockbuster author Sarah A. Parker. A big fan of the Moonfall series, Stacey looks for insider details at the construction of complex magic landscapes, what inspired her to begin writing, and how long her creative process takes.

Sarah shares personal details about her journey to writing the Moonfall series, as well as the Crystal Bloom series - both still in the works. Will she give us a sneak peek into Moonfall Book 3? You’ll have to watch to find out.

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Shop The Ballad of Falling Dragons: https://thenile.shop/FallingDragonsNZ

Shop More Sarah A. Parker: https://thenile.shop/SarahAParker

Follow Sarah:
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https://www.facebook.com/sarahashleighparkerauthor

Follow The Nile Australia:
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Books Mentioned:

Crystal Bloom Series:
To Bleed a Crystal Bloom (2021)
To Snap A Silver Stem (2022)
To Flame A Wild Flower (2023)

Moonfall Series:
When The Moon Hatched (2024)
The Ballad of Falling Dragons (2026)
Moonfall Book 3: Unreleased

Join John Purcell on Page Turners as he chats with Shannon Kelly-White about her debut novel, Billie King: a bold, fast-moving Australian adventure about mothers, daughters, female bushrangers, and women fighting to survive on the margins. Shannon shares the inspiration behind the book, her love of the Australian bush, and her leap from nonfiction into fearless fiction.

Shop Billie King: https://thenile.shop/BillieKingAU

Follow Shannon Kelly-White:
https://www.instagram.com/shannon.kelly.white/ 

Follow The Nile Australia:
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What would you do differently if you could live your choices again?

In this episode, host John Purcell sits down with bestselling Australian thriller author Petronella McGovern to unpack her mind-bending new novel, Every Time She Wakes.

When university careers counsellor Suze and her family are evacuated during a raging bushfire, their rescue van is hijacked. Following a terrifying crash, Suze doesn’t die—instead, she wakes up two weeks earlier. No one else remembers the horror. And then, it happens again. And again. With each shifting loop, the reality she knows slips further away.

John and Petronella dive deep into the mechanics of writing a high-stakes, time-bending mystery and the planning that goes into it. They also chat about Petronella’s backlist, and how she got her start in writing.

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Books by Petronella McGovern

Six Minutes (2019)
The Good Teacher (2020)
The Liars (2022)
The Last Trace (2024)
Every Time She Wakes (2026)

In this week’s episode, John Purcell sits down for an intimate, deeply moving conversation with acclaimed Australian author Kathryn Heyman to celebrate the release of her luminously beautiful seventh novel, Circle of Wonders. Kathryn Heyman is the author of seven novels and the critically acclaimed memoir Fury. Her work has been nominated for the Orange Prize, the Scottish Writer of the Year, and the West Australian Premier’s Book Awards.

Set over the course of one emotionally charged lunar month in the Blue Mountains, Circle of Wonders follows a fractured family of women as they navigate a devastating focal point: Roni, a charismatic, fiercely independent, and flawed woman, is dying of cancer. Simultaneously, her estranged mother, Sylvie, is breathing her last just across the mountain ridge. As Roni tries to compile a "Book of Wonders" to capture the small, luminous moments she once overlooked.

Kathryn opens up about the painful real-life genesis of the book. The seed of the novel was planted during an incredibly intense month where she found herself moving between caring for both her own mother and her sister, who were dying at the same time. She shares how she consciously led with this raw life experience, but ultimately chose the canvas of fiction to shape the narrative. For Kathryn, fiction was the only vehicle capable of holding the universal chorus of voices she wanted to capture.

Shop Circle of Wonders: https://thenile.shop/CircleofWonders

Shop More Kathryn Heyman: https://thenile.shop/KathrynHeyman

Follow Kathryn: 
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Books by Kathryn Heyman

The Breaking (1997)
Keep Your Hands on The Wheel (1999)
The Accomplice (2003)
Captain Starlight’s Apprentice (2006)
Floodline (2013)
Storm and Grace (2017)
Fury (2021)
Circle of Wonders (2026)

Internationally bestselling crime novelist Dervla McTiernan sits down with host John Purcell to discuss her latest thriller, Three Reasons for Revenge. In this episode, Dervla delves into the dark and intricate plot of her new book, which centres on three mysterious parcels leading to the "tailored destruction" of three unrelated individuals.

Discover how McTiernan navigated shifting between multiple perspectives while anchoring the story with her detective, Judith Lee, and why she chose Melbourne, Australia, as the setting for the first time. The author shares her unique writing habits (including removing her phone from the room and listening to music) and offers a peek into her "folder of stuff" hinting at a potential sequel to What Happened to Nina? and other future projects.

Tune in for an insightful conversation about creativity, balancing legal and literary careers, and finding home in a new country.

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Page Turners with The Nile takes you behind the curtain of the literary world. Join bestselling novelist and publishing insider, John Purcell, as he digs past the promotional hype to uncover the real stories behind the books and the writers who create them. 

Expect revealing, insightful, and often surprising conversations about a writer's true sources of inspiration, their private path to publication, and their honest reflections on the world around them.  If you love books and want a deeper connection to the people who write them, this is your new favourite listen. 

Presented by The Nile, your leading online bookshop. 

Books by Dervla McTiernan
Cormac Reilly Series
The Ruin (2018)
The Scholar (2019)
The Sisters (2020)
The Good Turn (2020)
The Roommate (2020)
The Unquiet Grave (2025)

Standalones & Novellas
The Murder Rule (2022)
The Wrong One (2022)
The Fireground (2023)
What Happened to Nina? (2024)
Three Reasons for Revenge (2026)

Join host John Purcell for a wide-ranging conversation with No.1 bestselling author Fleur McDonald about her latest novel, The Witness.

With twenty-seven novels and more than a million book sales to her name, bestselling crime author Fleur McDonald has always had a strong affinity with the land and the vast Australian outback. She talks openly about her life before writing - growing up on the Flinders Ranges, riding around Australia in her father’s semi-trailer, then moving to Western Australia to follow her dream of being a farmer. Fleur talks about her new crime series set in Kalgoorlie - The Prospect, The Missing and The Witness - and describes how she gets the very secretive people of Kalgoorlie to spill the beans.

Plus, find out what Fleur thinks about her much-loved, but occasionally uncontrollable, character Detective Dave Burrows.

Known for the authenticity of her writing, Fleur’s new crime series is for lovers of Jane Harper’s The Dry, Chris Hammer’s Scrublands and Michael Brissenden’s Rust.
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Page Turners with The Nile takes you behind the curtain of the literary world. Join bestselling novelist and publishing insider, John Purcell, as he digs past the promotional hype to uncover the real stories behind the books and the writers who create them.

Expect revealing, insightful, and often surprising conversations about a writer's true sources of inspiration, their private path to publication, and their honest reflections on the world around them.  If you love books and want a deeper connection to the people who write them, this is your new favourite listen.

Presented by The Nile, your leading online bookshop.

Books by Fleur McDonald:

Kalgoorlie

   1. The Prospect (2025)

   2. The Missing (2025)

   3. The Witness (2026)

Detective Dave Burrows

   0.5. A Farmer's Choice (2018)

   1. Fool's Gold (2018)

   2. Without a Doubt (2019)

   3. Red Dirt Country (2020)

   4. The Shearer's Wife (2020)

   5. Something to Hide (2021)

   6. Deception Creek (2021)

   7. Broad River Station (2022)

   8. Rising Dust (2022)

   9. Into the Night (2023)

 10. Shock Waves (2024)

Detective Dave Burrows (present day)

   Emerald Springs (2015)

   Indigo Storm (2016)

   Sapphire Falls (2016)

   Suddenly One Summer (2017)

   Where the River Runs (2018)

   Starting From Now (2019)

   Out in Nowhere (2024)

Standalone Novels

   Red Dust (2010)

   Blue Skies (2010)

   Purple Roads (2012)

   Silver Clouds (2013)

   Crimson Dawn (2014)

   The Missing Pieces of Us (2017)

   Voices in the Dark (2023)