Of sorts.At dusk he lights the candelabrum, creating an island of light in the centre of the room, animating the faces of the two dressed mannequins, glinting off the cutlery, the long array of glasses, the cellophane wrappers on the biscuits, the chocolate's silver foil. And the margins of the room are lost in the murk, might as well not exist. Richard smiles at the effect, at the little oasis of festivity and commemoration in a wide dark world. Christchurch, days after the February 2011 earthquake. Richard hides, with a lost dog, in an abandoned, leaning hotel. Annie returns from England, seeking a lost father in her battered home town. Vince relives the most significant emotional experience of his life. What binds these lives together, and what tore them apart?Joe Bennett's first novel is the work of a superb writer at the top of his game.

    Heart - warming and compulsive reading, this is an entertaining, lively and moving novel from one of New Zealand's favourite authors.

    '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.

    Molly is dreading having to spend time with her mother, but she is pleased her son will see his cousins and is looking forward to catching up with her brothers . . . Joe in particular.Under the summer sun, family tensions intensify, relationships become heightened and Molly and Joe will not be the only ones with secrets that must be kept hidden.'No one must ever know.'

    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?

    

    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?

    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.

    Her father has gone to bring home a son missing because of the war. Loyal servants give her support and comfort and are at her side when she learns of her father’s death. She promises to fulfill her father’s dream but someone doesn’t want her to, the one person she should be able to trust. He sets out to defeat her until another man, a Northern stranger, comes to her aid.

    Set in an unnamed NZ city in 1953, Fire tells the story of four working class friends, all employed at Dawsons, one of the country's most glamorous and sophisticated department stores. The girls are Nancy, a salesgirl in the dress department, Kay who works in lingerie, Louise, a typist in Accounts and Judy, a milliner in the workroom out the back. The story takes place a week before Christmas, in the period leading up to Christmas as the country prepares for a Royal Visit by the young Queen Elizabeth. When the store is full of wealthy shoppers smoke is discovered drifting from the basement lift shaft. While the fire brigade is called, the store owners make a crucial error and decide not to raise a public alarm until it's too late - exits are cut off by the fire and the ground and first floors are ablaze, trapping staff and customers on the upper floors.

    Jim's only complaint is that Sally is too soft hearted for her own good, always at the beck and call of any neighbour, friend or even stranger. Sally, on the other hand, accuses Jim of being a soft touch for anyone after a drink or two at the Rising Sun. Both accept that neither will ever change and they love each other and their daughter Daisy deeply. Theirs is a close-knit family in a close-knit community where gossip - both good and bad - abounds and neighbour looks out for neighbour and friend for friend. And when Sally's generosity leads to an inheritance it should mean a change of life for the better, instead it brings danger and difficult choices for them all...

    In the spring of 1665, England is recovering from a terrible winter, yet the country has other severe problems to face as the sun finally returns. The King, Charles II, had been welcomed back as a saviour on his restoration five years before, but is now resented by increasing numbers of his own people. And in March, the King declares war on the Dutch, England’s great seagoing trade rivals… Worse news comes to Restoration London, though, when there is an outbreak of the plague in April. This is terrible news in particular for the wealthy young physician and merchant Henry Raven, who believes that the outbreak is not natural but has been caused by an old enemy plotting his revenge against the city of London. Henry Raven, together with his friends from the Royal Society, Dr William Croone and Robert Hooke, organize the city’s fight against the spread of the disease. Raven’s delectable young mistress, Molly Titchen, is a precocious seventeen-year-old actress at the new King’s theatre in Drury Lane who is torn between her devotion to Henry Raven, and her love of strutting the stage in breeches parts. When Molly gives a bed for the night to one sick young actor, her kind action is misunderstood by Raven who believes that she has been unfaithful to him. Then Molly falls on hard times herself, and is aided not by her jealous lover, but by a strange Moorish apothecary, and a mysterious Frenchman, Philippe Desargues, Comte de Mésanger... Henry Raven has other problems to trouble his mind too, apart from his fight against the plague and his wish to save his relationship with Molly. Firstly, a close childhood friend, Esther Linney, has disappeared from her cottage on the estate of Raven’s family home in Dorset, Salwayash Manor, and gone to London. Raven’s sister Catherine asks her brother to find Esther in London, and discover why she left Dorset in such mysterious circumstances. Raven also has to deal with the fact that his sister has clearly fallen in love with their wealthy neighbour, the recently widowed Ralph Warboys, who is a handsome man yet one with a haunted past. And then strange events unfold in the quiet Dorset countryside when two young girls are found dead in suspicious circumstances... As the plague rages through London, Raven finds himself having to defend Esther Linney against a charge of witchcraft, while also trying to save Molly from an implacable enemy. But his greatest challenge is to discover the secrets of an old family curse, and to unmask a cruel murderer…

    Yellow Horse is a man on the edge. He’s struggling to understand his place as a Comanche warrior in the rapidly changing times, and the white man’s world. He’s found some comfort scouting for his peoples’ long-time enemies, the Texas Rangers To improve his beef holdings, Quanah needs a man to buy breeding stock and herd them to the reservation. Yellow Horse has come in answer to his prayers. He is surprised to learn that Quanah is no longer fighting the American government. He too is learning to think and speak like a white man. In a time when native people are hated and feared, Yellow Horse sets out to find someone who will sell cattle to the Comanche, hire drovers, outfit a cattle drive, and deliver the herd to the Indian Territory. Before he can bring in the herd, he’ll have to confront rustlers and track down the outlaws who destroyed a small settlement. They’ve kidnapped the woman he loves, an army Colonel’s daughter. They will show him no mercy. None will be shown them. The story is set in the Panhandle of Texas and the Indian Territory of Oklahoma in the late spring of 1877. It includes many historic figures who lived in the area at the time. It's another a contribution to the many books of historical fiction that address the frontier period .

    Now, she must learn to survive.Forced to be both mother and father to her siblings after Ada’s mother turns to gin, and no longer able to scour the banks of the Thames as mudlarks, Ada turns to picking up cigarette butts from the filthy streets and repurposing the tobacco into a saleable item.Assisted by Elijah the son of a stonemason the Blair family manages to keep a roof over their heads, until their mother’s addiction spirals out of control and they find themselves out on the street.Desperate for safety, Ada takes a risk and is befriended by the well to do Mr Beauregard. But not all things are as they seem and soon Ada is torn from her family and thrown into a world of corruption she could not have imagined.When a chance meeting with Elijah reveals the truth, Ada’s life is at a crossroadsCan Ada leave behind the new life she now finds herself in? Will Elijah ever forgive her for what she has become? Or should Ada let the past remain behind and leave her family in peace.Nell Harte writes sweet and clean Historical Romance.