Danielle Binks - Blog Posts
Happy Halloween 2021! - here’s ‘The Monster Of Her Age’ vibing with other the-story-behind-Horror books 🧟♂️📖 and also the 👑, Shelley’s Frankenstein. A meta (sorry 😬) way to engage with the genre if Horror is not your thing, and also if you really want a YA queer kissing book 😘 Also featured are:
🎃 ‘Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction’ by Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson
🎃 ‘She Made a Monster: How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein’ by Lynn Fulton, illustrated by Felicita Sala
‘The Monster of Her Age’ drops on July 28 with Hachette Books Australia. Here are some reviews that mention similar-reads;
“This book is all kinds of wonderful. From its smart and nuanced look at how we respond to art, to questions of whether it's possible to separate art from its problematic artist, Binks has written a book I so wish existed when I was a film-obsessed teen. It brought to mind ‘Actress’ by Anne Enright and ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid but also ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ in the way it untangled secrets and pain passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter. The chats about the horror genre are so well done and made me immediately want to join a film group. The queer love story is beautifully told. And the look at how a family manages death is beautiful and real and profound. The chapter closes are all so nicely done too which is a minor point but shows that care was paid to both the big and the small. All up this is my favourite kind of contemporary YA and this book is perfection.” — Jaclyn Crupi
“A warm hug of a book that's packed to the brim with tenderness, truth, and timeless charm. ‘The Monster of Her Age’ is as much an homage to film as it is to family and heart-fluttering crushes. A must-read for fans of Nina LaCour.” — SARAH ROBINSON-HATCH, The YA Room
How do you ruin someone's childhood?
Ellie Marsden was born into the legendary Lovinger acting dynasty. Granddaughter of the infamous Lottie Lovinger, as a child Ellie shared the silver screen with Lottie in her one-and-only role playing the child monster in a cult horror movie. The experience left Ellie deeply traumatised and estranged from people she loved.
Now seventeen, Ellie has returned home to Hobart for the first time in years. Lottie is dying and Ellie wants to make peace with her before it's too late.
When a chance encounter with a young film buff leads her to a feminist horror film collective, Ellie meets Riya, a girl who she might be able to show her real self to, and at last comes to understand her family's legacy.
Little news ☺️ “Alyssa Miele at HarperCollins/Quill Tree Books has bought ‘The Year the Maps Changed’ … Publication is set for fall 2022; Annabel Barker at Annabel Barker Agency handled the deal via Jacinta di Mase at Jacinta di Mase Management.” 🗺 ‘Maps’ is a very Australian-focused book, and I am incredibly thankful that it’s been acquired by a US-publisher who is intending to keep it that way. Quill Tree has this motto; “Many branches, Many voices,” and I’m so grateful that with such an outlook, they saw fit to take onboard my little #LoveOzMG book. Most of you would probably know how important this particular aspect is to me, and I am truly just so floored and happy!
When your book-cover illustrator gifts you the original! 🥺🥰
In a neo-Gothic mansion in a city at the end of the world, Ellie finds there's room enough for art, family, forgiveness and love. A coming-of-age story about embracing the things that scare us from the author of ‘The Year the Maps Changed.’
How do you ruin someone's childhood? You let them make-believe that they are a monster. But sooner or later, the mask must come off...
Ellie Marsden was born into the legendary Lovinger acting dynasty. Granddaughter of the infamous Lottie Lovinger, as a child Ellie shared the silver screen with Lottie in her one-and-only role playing the child monster in a cult horror movie. The experience left Ellie deeply traumatised and estranged from people she loved.
Now seventeen, Ellie has returned home to Hobart for the first time in years. Lottie is dying and Ellie wants to make peace with her before it's too late. But forgiveness feels like playing make-believe, and memories are like ghosts.
When a chance encounter with a young film buff leads her to a feminist horror film collective, Ellie meets Riya, a girl who she might be able to show her real self to, and last comes to understand her family's legacy - and her own part in it.
A story of love, loss, family and film - a stirring, insightful novel about letting go of anger and learning to forgive without forgetting. And about embracing the things that scare us, in order to be braver.
First pages back for the forthcoming YA novel ...
‘The Monster of Her Age’ by Danielle Binks - coming August 2021
In a neo-Gothic mansion in a city at the end of the world, Ellie finds there's room enough for art, family, forgiveness and love. A coming-of-age story about embracing the things that scare us from the author of ‘The Year the Maps Changed.’
How do you ruin someone's childhood? You let them make-believe that they are a monster. But sooner or later, the mask must come off...
Ellie Marsden was born into the legendary Lovinger acting dynasty. Granddaughter of the infamous Lottie Lovinger, as a child Ellie shared the silver screen with Lottie in her one-and-only role playing the child monster in a cult horror movie. The experience left Ellie deeply traumatised and estranged from people she loved.
Now seventeen, Ellie has returned home to Hobart for the first time in years. Lottie is dying and Ellie wants to make peace with her before it's too late. But forgiveness feels like playing make-believe, and memories are like ghosts.
When a chance encounter with a young film buff leads her to a feminist horror film collective, Ellie meets Riya, a girl who she might be able to show her real self to, and last comes to understand her family's legacy - and her own part in it.
A story of love, loss, family and film - a stirring, insightful novel about letting go of anger and learning to forgive without forgetting. And about embracing the things that scare us, in order to be braver.
Entirely possible we’ve all been in iso too long - but to celebrate BSC on Netflix and a resurgence in the books, my local indie bookstore (Readings) turned me into a spin-off! 😍
‘The Year the Maps Changed’
Book launch in the time of COVID! Wasn’t exactly what I’d planned, but it was still joyous and exciting!