Shaeden Berry - Down the Rabbit Hole

The Mandurah Readers’ and Writers’ Festival is an annual adult literature event presented by City of Mandurah Library Services. The aim of the festival is to foster a love of reading and literature and encourage creativity in our community.

In 2026 the festival will be held from 8 - 10 January at Seashells Mandurah, bringing together an array of established and emerging storytellers from across Western Australia. This three-day festival includes author talks, and panel discussions

Please Note:

This ticket is for an individual event, if you would like to attend for the whole day, please purchase a Mandurah Readers & Writers Festival 2026 - Day Two Ticket ($15.00)

Join Shaeden Berry in conversation with Teena Miller, discussing Shaeden’s novel, Down the Rabbit Hole.

Shaeden Berry

Shaeden Berry is the author of two crime novels, Down the Rabbit Hole (2024) and At Cafe 64 (2025), published with Echo Publishing. She holds both a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s in Creative Writing. Her short stories have also featured in numerous anthologies, including Kill Your Darlings' New Australian Fiction 2023. She lives in Boorloo with her partner and their two cats, Frumpkin and George.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Alice Montgomery goes missing in 2015. Seven years later, her best friend Hannah is bouncing from job to job, house to house, forever feeling the need to outrun something, but unsure what. With the niggling need to move nipping at her heels, Hannah decides to return to her hometown for the first time since she left, to help her mum after surgery. The relationship is long-fractured, broken apart by grief after the suicide of Hannah's father when she was eleven. When Hannah hears that Marnie Montgomery, Alice's mum, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, she is seized by terror that she will never get closure for her friend's disappearance. An addict and recluse, rumours have long-since dogged Marnie - rumours that she was responsible for her daughter going missing. Marnie insists she had nothing to do with Alice's disappearance and points a finger instead at a teacher, Rachel Olney, who is nursing broken dreams and haunted by a single bad decision she made long ago. What unfolds is a tale of three women - Hannah, Marnie, Rachel - and of grief left unchecked, of what it means to be a mother, a daughter, and of all the terrible ways in which we can hurt one another. On the periphery, the mystery of Alice dances, but what becomes central is a story not of a crime, but of those left behind by tragedy, desperately seeking closure that might not exist.

Facilitator – Teena Miller

Teena Miller is Coordinator Library Services for the City of Mandurah. In addition to her Bachelor of Arts degree, Teena also has a Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Studies and recently completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA).

Teena has what some might consider an unnatural enthusiasm for crime, which stems from her undergraduate degree in Sociology / Anthropology, not her family history (although rumour has it, she does come from convict stock).

An avid reader, Teena has a particular fondness for Australian crime, both true and fictional and also loves dinosaurs and primates. But that’s a whole other story!

What to Expect:

11.00am: In Conversation

11.45am: Q & A

12noon: Book signing

Tea & Coffee provided.

Festival Bookseller is Dymocks Busselton