In her third novel, Others Were Emeralds, Australian author Lang Leav explores friendship, romance, ambitions, and regrets in a fictionalized small town in the 90s. Taking place in a fictionalized part of Sydney with a high immigrant population, Ai and her friends deal with the complications of growing up in the face of racism, social pressures, and financial hardship.

Leav takes cues from her own life as a 90s kid in Cabramatta, Sydney, but adds a kind of flurry of love and tragedy that elevates it to the grandiose. Written with the kind of poetic flare only a poet could infuse, Leav beautifully crafts a nostalgic story reminiscent of a time and a place in which we can all place ourselves.