McLeods Booksellers

No One Can Hear You by Nikki Crutchley

$39.99 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction

The Imaginary Lives of James Poneke by Tina Makereti

$38.00 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction | Reading Level: near fine

While exhibited as a curiosity, a Maori boy turns his gaze on Victorian London. 'The hour is late. The candle is low. Tomorrow I will see whether it is my friends or a ship homewards I meet. But first I must finish my story for you. My future, my descendant, my mokopuna. Listen.?So begins the tale of Ja mes Poneke- orphaned son of a chief; ardent student of English; wide-eyed survivor. All the world?s a stage, especially when you?re a living exhibit. But anything can happen to a young New Zealander on the savage streets of Victorian London. When James meets the man with laughing dark eyes and the woman who dresses as a man, he begins to discover who people really are beneath their many guises.Although London is everything James most desires, this new world is more dark and dazzling than he could have imagined. ...Show more

Winged Helmet White Horse by Karyn Hay

$35.00 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction

Following the success of Karyn Hay’s historical fiction novel, The March of the Foxgloves, Karyn returns with Winged Helmet, White Horse – more reminiscent in style of her debut, Emerald Budgies. Set in contemporary London, Winged Helmet, White Horse is a darkly comic psychological drama. T im has mastered the art of subordination; to his job, his wife, and even his daughter. Having written one critically acclaimed book of poetry he is struggling to write a second, while his wife, Natasha, who is into “positive affirmations”, and spending money, has plans of her own. As Tim stumbles through the social landscape of suburban London, trying to give up alcohol and gain some control over his life, he makes several disturbing discoveries; ultimately concluding that he is not in control of anything, and that it’s all been a terrible, deadly illusion. ...Show more

The Wish Child by Catherine Chidgey

$30.00 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction | Reading Level: Very Good

Winner of the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction Germany, 1939. Two children watch as their parents become immersed in the puzzling mechanisms of power. Siggi lives in the affluent ignorance of middle-class Berlin, her father a censor who excises prohibited words ('promise', 'love', 'mercy'). Erich is an only child living a lush rural life, aware that he is shadowed by strange, unanswered questions. Drawn together as Germany's hope for a glorious future begins to collapse, the children find temporary refuge in an abandoned theatre amidst the rubble of Berlin. The days they spend there together will shape the rest of their lives. Watching over Siggi and Erich is the wish child. He sees what they see, he feels what they feel, yet his is a voice that comes from deep inside the wreckage of a nation's dream. ...Show more

From the Ashes by Deborah Challinor

$36.99 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction

Allie Manaia must navigate society's disapproval of her mixed-race marriage to Sonny, while at the same time attempting to cope with the death of their baby, and undiagnosed PTSD - a result of being caught in the Dunbar & Jones department store fire two years earlier. Allie's grief, and her distress at failing to conceive again, are compounded when those near her seem to have no trouble falling pregnant - even when they shouldn't. And then there's Sonny's wayward sister, Polly, who, it appears, is not above selling her own child ...After being advised to quit her job at Smith & Caughey's department store for her health, Allie's offered the job of marketing the quality knitwear of a Maori women's co-operative. But who will buy it, racism being what it is in 1950s New Zealand? And is her wealthy friend Kathleen Lawson really trying to come between her and Sonny, or is Allie just imagining that? ...Show more

The Ice Shelf by Anne Kennedy

$30.00 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction | Reading Level: very good

The Ice Shelf - an eco-comedy. On the eve of flying to Antarctica to take up an arts fellowship, thirty-something Janice, recently separated, has a long night of remembrance, regret and realisation as she goes about the city looking for a friend to take care of her fridge while she's away. En route she discards section after section of her manuscript in the spirit of editing The Ice Shelf into a stronger, sleeker work of literature. The Ice Shelf is an electrifying allegory for the dangers of wasting love and other non-renewable resources. ...Show more

The New Ships by Kate Duignan

$30.00 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction | Reading Level: near fine

Peter Collie is adrift in the wake of his wife's death. His attempts to understand the turn his life has taken lead him back to the past, to dismaying events on an Amsterdam houseboat in the seventies, returning to New Zealand and meeting Moira, an amateur painter who carried secrets of her own, and to a trip to Europe years later with his family. An unexpected revelation forces Peter to navigate anew his roles as a husband, father and son. Set in Wellington after the fall of the Twin Towers, and traversing London, Europe, the Indian subcontinent, The New Ships is a mesmerising book of blood-ties that stretch across borders. A novel of acute moral choices, it is a rich and compelling meditation on what it means to act, or to fail to act. ...Show more

Obsession by SANDYS ELSPETH

$34.99 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction | Reading Level: Very Good

Obsession is a literary mystery tale, the story of an obsessive love affair, and the repercussions long after the affair has ended. The two people at the heart of the story are writers. The third person in the triangle is a celebrated poet of Dalmatian extraction. It recreates the era in an atmosphere c harged with New Zealand's 1980s culture, set on an island where the dense bush forms a metaphor for the difficulties of a struggling writer striving to raise her head above the dominating reputation of her lover. ...Show more

Rotoroa by Head AMY

$30.00 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction

On tiny, isolated Rotoroa Island in the Hauraki Gulf is a treatment facility for alcoholic men. It's here, at the Salvation Army-run home, that three characters at very different points in their lives will find themselves gathered, each for reasons of their own. There is Katherine, known to history as E lsie K. Morton, famous journalist and author; Jim, a sleepless alcoholic sent to the island by his family; and Lorna, a teenage mother who joins the Salvation Army looking for a fresh start. As the stories of their lives are revealed, so too are their hopes and vulnerabilities. Set in the 1950s, as rigid social codes in New Zealand are beginning to evolve and come unstuck, Rotoroa is a compassionate, beautifully unfolding examination of loss and the possibility of renewal. Told with subtlety and intelligence, this novel affirms Amy Head as a remarkable new voice. ...Show more

A Sister In My House: A Novel by Linda Olsson

$35.00 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction

Honest and moving, this intense storycarefully tracks a relationship stunted in childhood but given a second chance. One sister have I in our house, And one, a hedge away. There's only one recorded, But both belong to me. Maria has found a sanctuary in a rented house, overlooking a small Spanish villag e by the sea. She is coming to terms with losing the love of her life. But her solitude and the places that have become special to her are about to be encroached upon by the arrival of her younger sister, Emma. Will the intrusion only serve to evoke the bad memories of childhood or will the impending visit help them restart their lives? This is a moving and heart-warming story of two sisters negotiating personal tragedies, past alienation and their own failings to try to come together in understanding and love. 'It is beautiful, sad and hopeful.'- Norran, Sweden ...Show more

All This by Chance by Vincent O'Sullivan

$35.00 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction

If we don't have the past in mind, it is merely history. If we do, it is still part of the present. Esther's grandparents first meet at a church dance in London in 1947. Stephen, a shy young Kiwi, has left to practise pharmacy on the other side of the world. Eva has grown up English, with no memory of t he Jewish family who sent their little girl to safety. When the couple emigrate, the peace they seek in New Zealand cannot overcome the past they have left behind. Following the lives of Eva, her daughter Lisa and her granddaughter Esther, All This by Chance is a moving multigenerational family saga about the legacy of the Holocaust and the burden of secrets never shared, by one of New Zealand's finest writers. ...Show more

As the Earth Turns Silver by Alison Wong

$30.00 NZD

Category: NZ Fiction

Her came from behind and held her in his arms, told her to look again at earth and sky and water. Could she see how the world turned silver? People died, he told her, because they were afraid. They did not go out at night on dangerous water. They did not see the earth as it turned overnight to silver. F rom the late nineteenth century to the 1920's, from Kwangtung, China to Wellington and Dunedin and the Battlefields of the Western Front - a story of two families. Yung faces a new land that does not welcome the Chinese. Alone, Katherine struggles to raise her children and find her place in the world. In a climate of hostility towards the foreign newcomers, Katherine and Yung embark on a poignant and far-reaching love affair ... ...Show more