New Zealand Books > NZ Fiction

Marion Flint lives alone on the wild west coast of New Zealand's North Island. One day she meets a small boy, Ika, on the empty, rugged beach, and an unlikely friendship begins between the Swedish doctor and the solemn child with webbed feet and a fear of being touched. As Marion's involvement with Ika deepens she is forced to revisit her own lonely childhood in Sweden, where neglect and a destructive home environment had deadly consequences. But Marion's most deeply buried hurt is that she had to lose the love of her life twice ov... read more

Auckland, June 1886. Ngati Wai chief Paratene Te Manu spends long sessions, over three long days, having his portrait painted by the Bohemian painter Gottfried Lindauer. Hearing of Lindauer's planned trip to England reminds him of his own journey there, twenty years earlier, with a party of northern rangatira. As he sits for Lindauer, Paratene retreats deeper and deeper into the past, from the triumphs in London and their meetings with royalty to the disintegration of the visit into poverty, mistrust, and humiliation. Based on a true story

Against the historical background of the compelling and extraordinary events which surrounded the village of Parihaka in the 1870s and 1880s, Witi Ihimaera tells the fictional story of Erenora. Parihaka was a place synonymous with passive resistance, a place that Erenora called home, a place where Horitana came to find and marry her. It was also a place that the colonial settlers wanted to occupy, by fair means or foul. While most in Parihaka who passively resisted the encroachments were sent to gaol, Horitana was to meet a far wor... read more

The long-awaited follow-up to the highly successful Tito Ihaka novels.
After a men's room confrontation with his new boss right-hand man, Maori cop Tito Ihaka has been sent into exile. Out of the blue McGrail summons him back to Auckland. Christopher Lilywhite, the businesswoman's terminally ill husband whom Ihaka suspected was behind his wife's death, wants to see him.
Lilywhite confesses that he had his wife murdered, but he dealt with the hit-man at arm's length so has no idea who he is. In quick succes... read more

When Tamar Deane is orphaned at seventeen in a small Cornish village, she seizes the chance for a new life and emigrates to New Zealand. In March 1879, alone and frightened on the Plymouth quay, she is befriended by an extraordinary woman. Myrna McTaggert is travelling to Auckland with plans to establish the finest brothel in the southern hemisphere and her unconventional friendship proves invaluable when when Tamar makes disastrous choices in the new colony. Tragedy and scandal befall her, but unexpected good fortune brings vast c... read more

III/II miss my smiling son more than any other man before or since./I /I London 1866. Elizabeth Smith is struggling to survive when she hears her New Zealand employers Judge and Lady Martin are returning to England. Accompanied by her dear friend, the lunatic Reverend Cotton, she makes a pilgrimage to settle old scores. Elizabeth is also accompanied by liberal doses of opiates and two small ghosts, walking by her side, whispering, murmuring, calling her. Award-winning writer Stephanie Johnson lovingly peoples a landscape of the pa... read more

The whale rider was Kahutia Te Rangi. Ancestor of the people of Te Tai Rawhiti, he travelled from Hawaiki, the place of the Ancients, to the East Coat of New Zealand. Then there was Kahu. The first great-grandchild of the whanau, she was loved by all her relatives except the one whose love she needed most - her great-grandfather.Moving effortlessly between mythology and realism, pathos and comedy, The Whale Rider will delight readers of all ages. Since its publication in 1987, The Whale Rider has been reprinted numerous times and h... read more

A collection of contemporary New Zealand comic verse from a selection of published and unpublished poets.

Maverick Maori cop Tito Ihaka, is a detective sergeant in the Auckland CID. Despite treading on numerous toes and breaking most of the rules in the book, Ihaka eventually gets his man - and sometimes his woman. OLD SCHOOL TIE is about the unlocking of a dark 25-year-old secret relating to a teenage girl's mysterious suicide at a private school ball. Freelance journalist Reggie Sparks' investigation spills over into an underworld turf war involving the Sydney mafia and a ferocious Maori gang, the Blood Drinkers. INSIDE DOPE involves... read more

These are poems about water, its healing powers and nourishment of life. Some are about Lake Rotorua itself, lying in the dormant crater of a volcano; signs of its past can still be seen in hot springs at its foreshore.

The third instalment of Maurice Gee's breathtaking Salt series - now rejacketed. What is the source of the Limping Man's monstrous power? Nobody can withstand it, a soft crawling that seeps into your skin and wriggles into your mind, making you powerless with love for him even as his cruelties multiply. When Hana's mam chooses to swallow frogweed poison rather than die in the great witch-burning in People's Square, Hana flees the burrows before she too is taken. Deep in the forest she meets Ben, son of Lo, and the two journey back... read more

Powerful and visionary, Keri Hulme has written the great New Zealand novel of our times. The Bone People is the story of Kerewin, a despairing part-Maori artist who is convinced that her solitary life is the only way to face the world. Her cocoon is rudely blown away by the sudden arrival during a rainstorm of Simon, a mute six-year-old whose past seems to hold some terrible trauma. In his wake comes his foster-father Joe, a Maori factory worker with a nasty temper. The narrative unravels to reveal the truths that lie behind these ... read more

Remaindered copies A BRILLIANT RENDITION OF THE NEW ZEALAND CLASSIC.

DoP September 2009, NZ 148 x 210mm Softcover This second novel by New Zealand writer, Donald Armstrong, explores the idea, suggested by recent rat bone research, that people lived here before the great Polynesian migrations of around the twelfth century - people who, given the unstable nature of the land, disappeared leaving little or no trace.

Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Vela, so red and ugly at birth they called him the Cooked; Vela the lonely admirer of pigs and the connoisseur of feet; Vela the lover of song maker Mulialofa the Boneman. Follow him down through the centuries on his travels, encountering the single-minded society of the Tagatanei and the Smellocracy of Olfact. Accompany him, too, as he recounts the stories of Lady Nafanua, the fearsome warrior queen, before whose powers Palagi priests and travelling chroniclers still bow down today.

'From the beginning Jack and I was friends. Somehow our way of looking at things fitted together. He never called me Dolly, the way the others did, only my full and proper name.' Sarah Thornhill is the youngest child of William Thornhill, convict-turned-landowner on the Hawkesbury River. She grows up in the fine house her father is so proud of, a strong-willed young woman who's certain where her future lies. She's known Jack Langland since she was a child, and always loved him. But the past is waiting in ambush with its dark legacy... read more

This anniversary edition of Witi Ihimaera's Pounamu, Pounamu celebrates the 40th year in print of one of New Zealand's most seminal works of fiction. When Pounamu, Pounamu was published in 1972, it was a landmark occasion for New Zealand literature in many ways. It was the first work of fiction published by a Maori writer, it was the first collection of short stories that looked at contemporary Maori life and it launched the career of on of New Zealand's best-known authors. The Pounamu, Pounamu 40th Anniversary Edition is a beautif... read more

Morris Goldberg is a man who can’t cry. Semi-retired from his career as a metadata analyst, he lives alone and conducts imaginary conversations with his recently-deceased wife, Sadie. Then news arrives that his daughter Rachel is missing in the bush, with bad weather on the way.
While Morris waits for news, he thinks back over his life, and as memory and dream start to merge, key scenes from his childhood and marriage play out in his imagination and the urgent questions of a lifetime press forward. What happens to... read more