Join us at Books@Stones on Wednesday 27 May, 6:30pm for an evening with Romy Ash in-conversation with Bianca Millroy discussing Romy's latest novel, Mantle.

Nature has another evolution in store for us...

I think about how the earth likes to cough things up. Bones, fossils, slivers of rock, like an interior self. How it likes to spew gas, lava, smoke. How the earth under our feet is anything but solid. How in fact, the surface itself is constantly in movement, teeming. And inside, inside, in the mantle, we can only guess.

Ursula is a self-possessed geologist. In her life on the mainland, she’s a guardian of the timescale, dividing history into segments and reading the Earth’s depths. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s simply science.

When her ailing mother is struck with a mystery illness she is called to the coastline of lutruwita/Tasmania. What begins as an incurable rash evolves into something more dangerous.

With the sickness spreading across the island, and beyond, Ursula finds herself stranded, stuck in her mother’s house and increasingly entangled with a younger man who she met at the pub. She is grieving, beginning to unhinge – and now she too has the rash.

The wild places of the island are solace, even as the world around her begins to shift. As she faces this eruption of new life, and grapples with death and decay, Ursula realises that this change may not signal an end, but a beginning.

Deeply moving and utterly original, Mantle is a powerful novel that shows us our fate is intertwined with the people around us, and the fate of our world.

Romy Ash is the author of Floundering, which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin, Commonwealth Book Prize and Prime Minister’s Literary Awards; and a children’s picture book called As Bright as a Rainbow. She was named one of Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Australian Novelists of the Year in 2013. Her work has been published in The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Griffith Review, Meanjin, Best Australian Short Stories, Best Australian Essays, among others. She lives in Naarm/Melbourne with her family.

Bianca Millroy is a writer, editor and podcaster based in Meanjin/Brisbane. Her words can be found in Brisbane Bookshops, Writing Queensland Science Write now, Jacaranda Journal, Visible Ink and more. In 2024, Bianca received the Scribe-Varuna Nonfiction Fellowship and in 2026 she was selected for the Faber Academy's Creative Nonfiction program for her manuscript, Caput Nebula, which explores own voices representations of functional neurological disorder. She is currently completing her PhD at the University of Queensland and hosts the Science Write Now podcast.

Praise for Mantle

‘Romy Ash’s Mantle is an exquisite novel. She gives voice to a remarkable and authentic cast of characters, writing with originality and dare. A wonderful book.’ – Tony Birch, author of Women and Children

‘Mantle is one of the best novels I’ve ever read, and Ash is one of the country’s finest writers. The novel just grows around you and won’t let go … This is a book of heart, of grief and of facing end times head on. Only Romy Ash has the sheer talent to tell such a tale.’ – Laura Jean McKay, author of The Animals in That Country

‘Mantle is evocative, funny, weird and gorgeous. This story will stay with you, linger on the skin and in the heart. A long-awaited class act from Ash.’ – Anna Krien, author of Act of Grace

‘Mantle is a ferocious hymn of love and grief and desire – one that howls for the planet. This novel will thread its way under your skin and wrap its tendrils around your heart. Dazzling.’ – Kate Mildenhall, author of The Hiding Place

'A generous work, by a glorious young writer.’—The Australian, ‘the big books of 2026’

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All our events are free to attend, but bookings are required as seats are limited.

Contact the host of Books@Stones event: Mantle by Romy Ash