November 2025 Featured Reviews
Novel Insight on 12th Nov 2025
November 2025 Featured Reviews
Check out our favourite new releases from our November Newsletter.
Welcome!
Below you will find 10 of our favourite new releases from November 2025.
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Featured Reviews
Row, Row, Row Your Boat (With Monsters)
| Author: Adam Simpson | Publisher: Macmillan Australia | |
| Illustrator: Gypsy Taylor | Release Date: 11 Nov 2025 | |
| ISBN: 9781761775611 | Reading Age: 3 to 6 years |
Language Rating: None
Content Insight: Contains witches, zombies, yetis and many other monsters, some with quite scary faces.
Novel Insight Short Review: Monster go bump at night in the sisters’ home. They wonder why, so they set out to find out, rowing out to ask the monsters. They meet, vikings, yetis, witches, and zombies, but none of them seem to be making the noise. The crew finally head home and discover the truth... An amusing, slightly scary rhyming picture book not for the faint of heart aimed at ages 3 to 6.
The Friendship Book
| Author: Zanni Louise | Publisher: Walker Books Australia | |
| Illustrator: Nicky Johnston | Release Date: 1 Nov 2025 | |
| ISBN: 9781760658106 | Reading Age: 4 to 7 years |
Novel Insight Short Review: This story is a celebration of friendships. Each page shows children playing together, making cakes, visiting the zoo, reading and writing, and spending time together outside. A charming picture book about friendship and the importance of these relationships that’s ideal for ages 4 to 7.
Ariana Treasure: The Fundraiser
| Author: Jacqueline de Rose-Ahern | Publisher: Wombat Books | |
| Illustrator: Karen Erasmus | Release Date: 5 Nov 2025 | |
| ISBN: 9781761111907 | Reading Age: 5 to 8 years |
Novel Insight Short Review: Ariana has a big problem—the family business is going broke! Her mum thinks the only way out of this problem is to sell the Treasure Chest to Mr Francis, but Ariana has another idea. She’s able to convince her mother to run a fundraiser to save the store. With the help of all of her friends and the community, Ariana puts together a wonderful event with entertainment, food and even a petting zoo! But will it be enough to save The Treasure Chest? The Ariana Treasure series includes black and white illustrations. A charming story about friends and helping each other overcome obstacles that is ideal for early readers.
Elif’s Itchy Palm
| Author: Lora Inak | Publisher: UWA Publishing | |
| Illustrator: Kruti Desai | Release Date: 14 Oct 2025 | |
| ISBN: 9781760803148 | Reading Age: 7 to 11 years |
Content Insight: Contains mention of superstitions, monsters and curses from various cultures.
Representations: Set in an English learning school for children who have moved from non-English speaking countries. Children are from Türkiye, Greece, Thailand, Kenya and others.
Novel Insight Short Review: Elif is from Türkiye, is new to Australia, and is beginning school at Cockatoo Hill English School. She’s nervous about starting at her new school, but she meets lots of other kids, also from different countries. Elif’s dede (father) gifts her a $2 coin that he says will indicate how her life in Australia will be. Nervous and obsessed with what to do with it, Elif loses it. Her new friends help search for the coin, but it all looks bleak until they decide that making new money is a good idea. A feel-good story celebrating cultural diversity with sweet illustrations that’s ideal for junior fiction readers.
The Wondrous Tale of Lavender Wolfe
| Author: Karen Foxlee | Publisher: A & U Children | |
| Release Date: 18 Nov 2025 | ||
| ISBN: 9781761182020 | Reading Age: 9 to 13 years |
Content Insight: Contains supernatural references and magic.
Contains mild violence.
Novel Insight Short Review: Lavender, a young English girl, is rescued after being abandoned. She is taken onto a pirate ship, The Good Marchioness, is disguised as a boy and given a new name—Hans Whitby. Hans quickly adjusts to this new life at sea, working in the kitchen with Big Agatha and Odine the chicken. The children on board all care for each other, and Big Agatha loves them as her own. Danger is never far away—there are raids on other ships, desperate battles at sea, and storms that threaten to swallow them whole—but there’s a sense of adventure and freedom in every journey. When times get scary, the children listen to the story of how the ship came to be cursed. Soon, they are on a mission to hunt a ghost ship, find a map and uncover treasure. An atmospheric adventure about identity, belonging and family that’s ideal for middle fiction readers.
The Experiment
| Author: Rebecca Stead | Publisher: Text Publishing | |
| Release Date: 30 Sep 2025 | ||
| ISBN: 9781923058576 | Reading Age: 10 to 13 years |
Content Insight: Contains forced child labour. Children are kept in poor conditions without much food and forced to work.
Novel Insight Short Review: Nathan is an 11-year-old boy who loves hanging out with his best friend, Victor. But Nathan has a big secret. He and his friend Izzy are both aliens from another planet learning how to fit in as humans. Their friendship grows through text messages and an awkward once-a-year Zoom call with eight other alien children scattered across the country, although some children have been going missing recently. Nathan and his parents are part of an experiment that began when his parents grew up on the mothership, travelling to Earth from their home planet, Kast. Everything in Nathan’s life is measured and recorded. All he can do is try to fit in and avoid being discovered. Then one day, something changes, and Nathan begins to question everything he has ever been told to believe. A charming coming-of-age story about fitting in that’s ideal for middle fiction readers.
The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
| Author: Anna Fiteni | Publisher: Farshore Fiction GB | |
| Release Date: 28 Oct 2025 | ||
| ISBN: 9780008684174 | Reading Age: 12 to 16 years |
Language Rating: Medium
Content Insight: Contains magic and magical creatures.
Contains moderate violence.
Contains mild animal cruelty.
Contains slavery.
Representations: LGBTQ+ representation. English/Wales characters.
Novel Insight Short Review: In 1842, wily, scrappy teenager Sabrina Parry is now the head of her family after her father is transported to Australia as a convict. Back in her Welsh mining village, her sickly sister, Ceridwen, disappears into the woods. Following her trail, Sabrina meets a fairy boy, Neirin, and learns of the sickness poisoning their land and the king’s promise to grant a wish to any human who can stop its spread. Forced to team up with Neirin to complete the quest and find her sister, she discovers that all is not what it seems here and Neirin may be just as dishonest as she is. A magical romantasy based on Welsh folklore with snappy dialogue and a shrewd, unlikable protagonist who is surprisingly fun to root for that’s ideal for Junior High readers.
What Have They Done to Liza McLean?
| Author: Amy Doak | Publisher: Penguin | |
| Release Date: 28 Oct 2025 | ||
| ISBN: 9781761350641 | Reading Age: 13+ years |
Language Rating: Low
Content Insight: Contains description of death, murder and poisoning.
Novel Insight Short Review: Meg and Liza are students at the prestigious Douglas Academy. While Meg just wants to focus, study and do well, Liza goes out to parties, abuses the privilege of being a scholarship student at a prestigious school. When Liza shows up to school one day, studying early for an assignment not due for three weeks, Meg is convinced something is wrong. Benedict is from a wealthy, connected family, and one of the only students not living on campus. He isn’t in the same circles as Meg and is constantly in trouble for hacking the school system, but he notices Meg. Meg is convinced something weird has happened to Liza and discovers that Liza is not the first wild student to suddenly become studious and serious. Meg is introduced to Benny, who can use his hacking skills to access the school records of these sudden changes. Together, they a much larger conspiracy than they had been expecting. A great teen read full of action and mystery.
iNSiDE
| Author: S. A. Gales | Publisher: Faber Child Trade | |
| Release Date: 18 Nov 2025 | ||
| ISBN: 9780571385829 | Reading Age: 14+ years |
Language Rating: None
Content Insight: Contains mild violence including hand to hand combat and torture.
Contains sci-fi and fantasy elements.
Novel Insight Short Review: Naya has spent her whole life training to become a soldier like her mother, the General of Emas. She spent her whole life living with other cadets in the academy, not with her mother. When a dangerous mission forces her to confront the truth about her city and its enemies, she begins to question everything she’s been taught — about loyalty, family, and what it truly means to be human.
A Murder Is Going Down
| Author: Kate Emery | Publisher: A & U Children | |
| Release Date: 4 Nov 2025 | ||
| ISBN: 9781761182211 | Reading Age: 13+ years |
Language Rating: High
Content Insight: Contains reference to suicide.
Contains sexual references and kissing.
Contains alcohol.
Representations: LGBTQIA representation. Characters in wheelchair and with cancer represented.
Novel Insight Short Review: When teenage Heidi and forty-something Marianne become stuck in a lift, Heidi distracts Marianne from her claustrophobia by sharing the story of her older brother, Felix’s murder while she was on an exchange program in Switzerland. The police ruled the death as a suicide, but Felix’s wife Elena and her brother Patrick don’t believe it and begin searching for the truth. Speaking with the guests of the party Felix and Elena threw the night of his death, they discover that some people don’t actually recognise Felix. Someone was impersonating him, that night. A Murder is Going Down is an edge-of-your-seat cosy mystery perfect for Holly Jackson, Amy Doak and Karen McManus fans.
Thank you for supporting us, these authors, and the publishers by reading this newsletter.
We hope you enjoyed these insights into some special new releases from November.
If you want to learn more about these books, including a long review (with spoilers), language rating, and accessibility information, choose your membership option here. By signing up for an Individual or School membership, you can also access our review database of 5000+ book reviews.
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