Claire Nicholls

And your book Whistler is among that.

I absolutely adored it.

Anne Patchett, thank you so much for joining me today.

Anne's book Whistler is published by Bloomsbury and those other books she recommended were John of John by Douglas Stewart and Music Against the Night by Yiyun Li.

You're listening to The Book Show on ABC Radio National.

I'm Clare Nicholls.

Now the Australian author Romy Ash is here.

Romy was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award for her debut novel Floundering and now she's back with her second.

This one is called Mantle and it is about a woman coming to Tasmania to care for her dying mum and a weird rash that turns into something even weirder.

Hi Romy.

Hi, hello.

Thanks for having me.

Oh, it's a pleasure.

I want to start by talking about Lutruwita or Tasmania, where this story is set.

Romi, what does this place mean to you?

So this book starts with Ursula heading to Tasmania to care for her dying mum.

Tell me about the relationship between Ursula and her mum.

So tell us, health-wise, what's going on with Ursula's mum?

She does have this rash, and as the book goes on, we realise that pretty much everyone in town has this rash, Robbie.

You know, it's not long before Ursula also has this rash.