After escaping from the Norfolk Island penal colony on a whaling ship, Bloodworth and his three fellow convicts are left on a remote southern island by a captain who promises to pick them up in a year's time.It will be many years before they see another ship.Durign that time four men, with nothing in common but a desire to escape and a need to survive, live together in cramped and freezing isolation. Slangam believes hard work will see them though, Toper puts his faith in the divine, Gargantua leans on his learning and Bloodworth watched – both his fellow felons and the inhospitable environment.Based on the true story of four convicts who spent more than nine years on the Snares Islands in the early years of the nineteenth century, Charlotte Randall's latest novel is a riveting, intelligent and powerful work of fiction.

    'Writers take what we learn of human nature and, fuelled by our longings for other existences and other times, forge new identities that can be as real as she is, sitting with her dog on the weathered step of the old house, stories that move us to tears or laughter.' Merle Carbury, an author in her own right, also teaches Creative Writing. Amid the tension of the final semester of the year, her many and varied students prepare to submit their manuscripts. As Merle mentors their assorted ambitions, observes the romantic entanglements of her colleague, worries about her husband and is intrigued by their mysterious German lodger, she both imparts and embodies how to write a novel. Written by a prize-winning author, who is also an experienced teacher, the overarching intelligence, compassion and wicked humour in this inventive book make it a joy to read.

    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.

    The people who have made it their home are a diverse collection, from Samuel Blencoe, trying to forget his past life as a convict, to the hoteliers at Pipiriki, the nuns at Jerusalem, the Maori families, the Chinese market gardener and the farmers, like Danny and Stella, trying to tame the wild bush. There's also Bridie, the strange, silent girl, who haunts the banks of the river where the accident occurred that robbed her of her mind. Like the tributaries that trickle down the mountains and join the mighty river, so the lives of these people come together in this vivid and moving tale of a stunningly unique place.

    It is our private journey, and only we understand how it came about; only we know the fitness and the wonder of it.'William James Mudie Larnach's name resonates in New Zealand history - the politician and self-made man who built the famous 'castle' on Otago Peninsula. In 1891, after the death of his first two wives, he married the much younger Constance de Bathe Brandon. But the marriage that began with such happiness was to end in tragedy.The story of the growing relationship between Conny and William's younger son, Dougie, lies at the heart of this subtle and compelling novel. The socially restrictive world of late nineteenth-century Dunedin and Wellington springs vividly to life as Marshall traces the deepening love between stepmother and stepson, and the slow disintegration of the domineering yet vulnerable figure of Larnach himself.Can love ever really be its own world, free of morality and judgement and scandal?

    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.

    Narrated by Alice, as an old woman looking back over the mistakes and tragedy of her family history, Blindsight is a corruscating look at the evil we are capable of inflicting upon each other. At the heart of the story lies the strange relationship between Alice and her brother, Gordon, and the mystery behind their estrangement. Only ever afforded Alice's take on events, Gee masterfully contructs a tale of unreliability. As he traces these unhappy lives over a period of forty years, the narrative only gradually gives up the dark family secrets. Published by Faber for over thirty years, Maurice Gee was among ten of New Zealand's greatest living artists named by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand Acclaimed in the Guardian for his 'terrifically entertaining fiction of villainy and betrayal, wry social history and deft political analysis' ...

    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.

    . .] leaving surrealist art installations all over the house— a tiny cow in a teapot in a hat on the doorstep, of course! A stuffed crocodile in a silk camisole perched beside a woollen chick in a beanie on the bread-bin, why not!'Just as they are despairing about being able to conceive another child, Jason comes into their family. He arrives under fraught circumstances, but might just make a perfect sibling for Billy. Jason is a ‘ lovely, poor, sad, unfortunate, ordinary, annoying, delightful nuisance of a ratbag of a hoot of a kid ' and the boys grow close over the ensuing years. But after a terrible accident, Billy turns into a bird. He utterly believes it: and as his behaviour becomes increasingly worrying, Liam and Iris must find a way to stop their family flying apart.When extracts of Billy Bird won the NZSA/Philip and Dianne Beatson Fellowship, the judges said the project was ‘inventive, joyful and beautifully written'. Ripe with playfulness, yet also unforgettably poignant, this novel will unstitch — and then mend — your heart several times over.

    This colourful story focuses on the relationship between the girls as they grow into women and their attempt to escape their impoverished background.The story is alternatively narrated by the eloquent Fag and the sensitive Ginnie, as well sections told by an historian and industrial psychologist.

    And then there was the question of Simon Lampton.' Roza Hallwright leads a quiet, orderly life, working at her publishing job each day, returning home to the large, comfortable house she shares with her politician husband David and her two stepchildren. But this peaceful existence is about to be changed forever. In the next few months there will be an election, and, if the polls are correct, Roza will become the Prime Minister's wife. She has faced the prospect with relative calm, but a chance encounter with party donor Simon Lampton sparks a chain of consequences that will bring turmoil to both their lives. Award-winning writer Charlotte Grimshaw has turned her unflinching eye on contemporary New Zealand society in this intricate and elegant novel. Sharp, moving, brimming with insight and observation, The Night Book is at once a meditation on power and politics, and an intensely humane look at the choices people make as they struggle, against the odds, to maintain love and integrity in their lives.

    He lands in coastal Gabriel’s Bay, billed as ‘a well-appointed small town’ on its website (last updated two decades ago). Here Kerry hopes to prove he’s not a complete failure. Or, at least, to give his most convincing impression.But Gabriel’s Bay has its own problems – low employment, no tourists, and a daunting hill road between it and civilisation. And Kerry must also run the gauntlet of its inhabitants: Sidney, single mother deserted by a feckless ex; Mac, the straight-shooting doctor’s receptionist; a team of unruly nine-year-olds; a giant restaurateur; and the local progressive association, who’ll debate apostrophe placement until the crack of doom.Can Kerry win their respect, and perhaps even love? Will his brilliant plan to transform the town’s fortunes earn him a lasting welcome in Gabriel’s Bay?

    It is the early 1900s and brothers Yung and Shun, immigrants from China, eke out a living as greengrocers in Wellington. The pair must support their families back home, but know they must adapt if they are to survive and prosper in their adopted home. Meanwhile, Katherine McKechnie struggles to raise her rebellious son and her daughter following the death of her husband, Donald. A strident right-wing newspaperman, Donald terrorized his family, though was idolized by his son. One day, Katherine comes to Yung's shop and is touched by the Chinaman's unexpected generosity. Over time a clandestine relationship develops between the immigrant and the widow, a relationship Katherine's son Robbie cannot abide ...During the First World War, as young men are swept up on a tide of macho patriotism, Robbie takes his family's honour into his own hands. In doing so, he places his mother at the heart of a tragedy that will affect everyone and everything she holds dear. Powerful, moving and utterly unforgettable, "As the Earth Turns Silver" announces the arrival of a bold new voice in contemporary fiction.

    But for the returned soldier there's a shadow over his own war experience in Italy. Three brothers went to war, but only one returned--Tu is the sole survivor.

    They're inching towards that ultimate dream - buying their own land. Fenward's always been lucky with its sharemilkers: grateful, grafting folk who understand what's expected of them. Until now, when grief-stricken Ian Baxter and his precocious daughter, Gabrielle, arrive.Nickie Walker is enchanted by the glamour and worldliness of Gabrielle. Nickie's mother finds herself in the crossfire of a moral battle she dreads to confront. Each has a story to share.This is a coming-of-age story for two young girls who hold a mirror up to the place and people they love. It's a coming-of-age story, too, for a community forced to stare back at the image of a damaged soul.The question is: who will blink first?