Review – ‘The Diemen Alexander’

Debut author, Marie Heitz.

Teenage years can be a torturous time, filled with raging hormones, uncertainty, and a yearning for everything to dramatically change from the mundane.

Finding a rapidly growing young lizard…or dinosaur, or whatever Alexander the diemen actually turns out to be, changes everything for good-hearted Luke and his loyal but ferociously acerbic sister, Gatt.

Alexander is very different, very special, and dying. The adventure of saving him from a mysterious illness or…something else, becomes complicated by the need to save him from those who would exploit him, or worse.

A complicated family situation leaves young Luke and Gatt to fend for themselves, with only a handful of friends – and crushes – to form a diverse Scooby Doo family to keep Alexander alive, and to thwart…well, we won’t spoil the twists.

Set in contemporary Hobart, The Diemen Alexander is a rip-roaring, sometimes breathless YA ‘kids on bikes’ adventure, with mystery, sci-fantasy tropes, moral dilemmas and a little will-they won’t-they romance for good measure. There’s some swearing and moderate violence.

Tasmanian debut author, Marie Heitz, is no stranger to raw and sometimes bloody reality. A doctor, she’s worked on the frontlines in emergency and remote area medicine, her geek side catered for in immunology at the delightfully named Department of Obscure Diseases, which I suspect should be the title of her next novel.

The Diemen Alexander is available in all good bookstores from October 2023. $32.99.  Clandestine Press, ISBN: 978-1-922904-41-6

B.P. Marshall is a scriptwriter and author.