So when she returns there after her father's death, for the first time in twenty-five years, it means facing a past she thought she had put behind her. But even as childhood memories threaten to paralyze her, Ellie sets out to discover the dark secret at the heart of her father's life and her parents' marriage, hoping the truth will allow her to break free from the past that has haunted her life.

    I felt it though. I let out an incredible whoop of joy and skipped into the air, laughing and laughing; there was so much joy inside me. For the first time in all my memory, I could not contain myself.As a boy in the early 1940s, young Boden Black finds his life changed for ever the day his neighbour Dudley drives him over the hills into the vast snow-covered plains of the Mackenzie country. Unexpectedly his world opens up and he discovers a love of landscape and a fascination with words that will guide him throughout his life, as he forges a career as a butcher and poet, spends a joyous summer building a hut on the slopes of Mount Cook and climbs to the summit in the company of Sir Edmund Hillary.A moving exploration of onw man's journey and the events which shape him, The Hut Builder is also an evocative celebration of the mountain world and the wonder of life.

    His story mirrors the alien experience everywhere.

    Her new neighbour Trixie is eighty-four years old and a hymn-singing Salvation Army veteran. Trixie's life is one of apparent calm but beneath the surface lie not one but three different personalities. One of them is very private. And very dangerous.

    She hates it, and she hates the hooligans. And she gets pretty bored. Ok, she's old, but that doesn't mean she's satisfied with a pair of slippers and a good book. Her best friend constantly taunts her with threats of an old people's home. But Birdie's resolute – she's not going anywhere near one of those places. She keeps herself busy, it's better to wear out than rust out. And when ex-husband Jimmy Dwyer turns up out of the blue with a greyhound that needs a home, Birdie thinks things might be on the up. But he vanishes just as quickly, leaving behind him some memories of the past that Birdie would rather forget. Laugh-out-loud funny – this is classic Laurie Graham.

    It uncovers the slow maturing of love and trust between two loners in a hard world.

    In prose that is both raw and compelling, it tells the story of Beth Heke, a Maori woman struggling to keep her family from falling apart, despite the squalor and violence of the housing projects in which they live. Conveying both the rich textures of Maori tradition and the wounds left by its absence, Once Were Warriors is a masterpiece of unblinking realism, irresistible energy, and great sorrow.

    It’s 2019: Charlie’s tightly contained Wellington life with her grandson Tommy is interrupted by the unexpected intrusions of Tommy’s first girlfriend, Jenna, and the father he has never known, Jim. The year turns, and everything changes again.Loop Tracks is a major New Zealand novel, written in real time against the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic and the New Zealand General Election and euthanasia referendum.‘Loop Tracks is an urgent and unexpected novel about freedom and responsibility – about a woman forced to wear her solitary and unsupported choice as a puzzling mistake, and about the very present past that she must face to help her family and herself.’ —Elizabeth Knox‘This fictional inter-generational story will speak to a wide readership about the choices that are important for our future.’ —Dame Margaret Sparrow

    When one of Daphne's sisters dies, a crisis is provoked that leads Daphne to a mental asylum where she receives shock treatment. Her voice from "the Dead Room" haunts the novel with its poetic insights.

    Auē can be heard in the sound of the sea he loves and hates, and in the music he draws out of the guitar that was his father’s. It spills out of the gang violence that killed his father and sent his mother into hiding, and the shame he feels about abandoning his eight-year-old brother to a violent home.But Ārama is braver than he looks, and he has a friend and his friend has a dog, and the three of them together might just be strong enough to turn back the tide of sorrow. As long as there’s aroha to give and stories to tell and a good supply of plasters.Here is a novel that is both raw and sublime, a compelling new voice in New Zealand fiction. Haere mai, Becky Manawatu.

    But the truth is life is threadbare and unpromising until the mysterious Bridget moves in to the Park. The wife of a disgraced Ponzi schemer, she brings with her glamour and wild dreams and an unexpected friendship. Drawn in, Kara forgets for a moment who she’s there to protect.

    Sometimes, it is Hemi, a man who was laid off from his job and realizes that this situation affords him the opportunity to reconnect with the land, his culture and his family. Other times, Toko is the narrator. Toko is Hemi's adopted son and is physically handicapped. However, he also has a sixth sense and can see events before they occur. Mostly, though, the story is told by Roimata, Hemi's wife and Toko's adoptive mother. She relates the growing concern the Maori have about developers coming into their land, and their quiet, concerted efforts to rebel. She details their successes and many painful failures in a sparse, simple prose. The book does not really have a true resolution; instead, Patricia Grace outlines the cultural differences that exist in New Zealand, and the uses and abuses of power, and how it can affect a people.

    Once he gets over his shock, Sobran decides that Xas, the male angel, is his guardian sent to counsel him on everything from marriage to wine production. But Xas turns out to be a far more mysterious character. Compelling and erotic, The Vintner's Luck explores a decidedly unorthodox love story as Sobran eventually comes to love and be loved by both Xas and the young Countess de Valday, his friend and employer at the neighboring chateau.

    Eight-year-old Pearl tries very hard to get things right. Attuned to her mother’s brittle moods, she watches over her younger brother while carefully guarding her private passions. But a senseless act of violence at summer camp shatters Pearl’s family, and nothing may ever be right again.In a cooler, greener suburb, Sonia is learning to live alone after the death of her husband, a furniture designer who will soon be commemorated by an exhibition of his work. At the edge of the city, the young sculptor Adam Logan is hoping that his controversial new exhibit will change his fortunes. Connected by grief and longing, and united by a shared goal to create a memorial for the city’s lost children, these characters’ lives become entangled in ways that none could have foreseen.Combining the intimacy of a family’s heartache with the suspense of a thriller, Careless is a gripping, seductive novel about the ties of caring and responsibility that are both formed and broken in today’s society and about the resilience of the human psyche.

    It's in this quiet place of wind and trees, birds and water that Richard is to fall passionately in love - but he cannot find fulfilment, for his lover is Susannah Beddoes, the wife of the vicar of his new parish. As Richard's feelings challenge him to his core, he develops a strange relationship with another woman, the solitary and eccentric Edith Clare. Against the backdrop of immense social and industrial change, the consequences of Richard and Susannah's affair are dramatic as they - as well as Oliver Beddoes - grapple with doubt and what it means to lose faith when the great certainties are in question. And throughout it all, the crossing-keeper's daughter Alice Birley - an observer of incidents and events she does not fully understand - has her own part to play...