Fiction > New Zealand & Pacific Island Fiction

What would make a soldier betray his country? In the battle-smoke and chaos of Gallipoli, a young New Zealand soldier helps a Turkish doctor fighting to save a boy's life. Then a shell bursts nearby; the blast that should have killed them both consigns them instead to the same military hospital. Mahmoud is a Sufi. A whirling dervish, he says, of the Mevlevi order. He tells David stories. Of arriving in London with a pocketful of dried apricots. Of Majnun, the man mad for love, and of the saint who flew to paradise on a lion ski... read more

2009 Montana Book Awards Reader's Choice Winner FICTION Category Runner-up Frankie Parsons is twelve going on old man : an apparently sensible, talented Year 8 with a drumbeat of worrying questions steadily gaining volume in his head. 'Does the cat, and therefore the rest of the family, have worms?' 'Will bird flu strike and ruin life as we know it?' 'Is the kidney-shaped spot on his chest actually a galloping cancer?' Most of the significant people in Frankie&At... read more

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Mei Li, a beautiful and highly educated Hui Chinese from Yunnan, is robbed of her job and qualifications as a doctor after falling foul of her disloyal husband and his spiteful and ambitious mother. In the chain of events that follows she finds herself forcibly used by the Chinese state to slake the sexual thirsts of depraved foreign guests. Merely for resisting her tormentors, she is thrown into prison without trial for six months. What follows is a journey of pain, adventure and betrayal, but ultimately ending in finding true lov... read more

Canterbury life in the 1850s is brought vividly to life in this novel, written in the style of Anthony Trollope or Henry Fielding. First published 2006.

As the strength of Nazi Germany grows, millions become displaced in the ensuing turbulent times. The story follows the lives of four individuals who although separated, witness the terrible fate of many. As special aide to Adolph Hitler, Gunther Lundberg has close insight into the Fuhrer's mind and how his leader manipulates those around him. Lovers Tim and Liesel, become separated as war spreads, but their love for each other binds them. Trapped in their own experiences of a changing world, they must fight alone; compelled only by... read more

David Asquith is a bumptious, preposterous rogue, yet as the rest of the world slides into financial ruin he plans a radiant pathway to personal success and universal happiness. The catalyst for his miraculous transformation is a chance meeting with a young woman called Daisy, beginning a chain of unlikely events that sees him quickly develop from pathetic failure to, in his eyes, a highly successful and brilliant entrepreneur and self-styled public benefactor. The story he tells of his glorious rise to meet the challenges of a wor... read more

The year is 1878. Luigi Galoni, a young Italian fisherman, is forced to flee his home in Pesaro and sail to New Zealand. He joins a boyhood friend, Leopoldo, in the Haast region, and together they try to break in their land. But Luigi must move on again, first to Westport, then to the isolated coast of Wellington, where he joins an Italian fishing community. There he and his young wife Alice raise a family, defying hardship, misfortune and poverty.A saga of courage, fortitude and abiding love, Alice & Luigi is also a story of t... read more

Classic Ihimaera. First published by Reed in 1972, it collects stories about Maori within settings that are Maori and with characters who are central to that setting — heroes, heroines and villains — rather than supporting players or sidekicks. These stories introduce the themes of aroha, whanaungatanga and manaakitanga — love, acknowledging kin and tribal relationships, and supporting Maori identity — that run through much of Ihimaera’s later work. This new edition of Pounamu Pounamu includes t... read more

An unforgettable historical novel comes from Auckland newcomer Terri Kessell. She combines a novelist’s skill with a historians exciting research into early NZ history – the murderous affray of the burning of the Boyd. This transfixed the world of 1809 when a clash with Maori seeking revenge âÂÃ... read more

Haunted by a death Charlotte flees to Korea,after seeing an advertisement seeking teachers for the Speak-English Academy. She could have gone anywhere-anywhere away from what had been the sheltered,orderly safety of her West Auckland Valley,but is she doing the right thing?. First published June 2007.

Set against a background of small towns, ocean voyages and damp houses comes this family story traipsing down four generations. The narrator puts the family together using memories, photographs, overheard comments, lies and damaged artifacts: indeed, as much history finds itself recorded. The main characters encountered leave the narrator sometimes impressed, sometimes horrified; while a fugue of lesser figures push at and propel the story with varying degrees of success and interruption. First published 2005.

Where does human language stand amidst the clamour of animal noises? Landfall 210 explores the mouths of beasts, with the great racket that is literature taking pride of place. Nick Ascroft is one of New Zealand's most exciting young poets, widely published in magazines and author of the acclaimed 2000 debut From the Author of and Nonsense (2003). First published November 2005.

Lily's Cupola is a rich and surprising novel which tells the story of Lily, an elderly woman reflecting on her life and family in letters to the other side of the world.

In the language of flowers, the iris signifies 'I have a message for you'. As a symbol, it was the "fleur-de-lys" of the royal family of France, known as the Flower of Chivalry, with a sword for its leaves and a lily for its heart. In this beautiful novel Bronwyn Tate weaves these images through the lives of ten very different people and their experiences of giving birth, of loss and rediscovery. (Preceeding text taken from abstract) Paperback

Living in idyllic Golden Bay, artist Ivan is plagued by a low frequency humming noise: is it whale song, tinnitus, electro-magnetism, a CIA weapon or the voice of God? Worse, Ivan is bored. His sensible lover, Jane, neglects her café to support his increasingly bizarre attempts to outwit the Hum. But he is most attracted by the spiritual solutions offered by warrior-woman Xania, a fanatical t’ai chi teacher with links to Argentina. Xania manipulates the ... read more

Hooked: the Story of the New Zealand Fishing Industry is the culmination of a lifetime's research into the industry - its pioneers, its personalities and its enormous value to the country. From the oyster cutters of the 1800s and mullet canneries of the early twentieth century, to the declaration of a 200 mile zone in 1978 and the quota management system, David Johnson provides a vivid record of the people, the companies and the government administration of commercial fishing. More tha this, he also covers aquaculture and marine... read more

'I know your dirty little secrets, Professor Motte.’ A placid and secure retirement seems certain for Kendill Motte, distinguished Professor of History at Arch Hill University – until an anonymous late-night phone call triggers a series of events that compels him to write a confession of his violent and ruthless rise from obscurity. Kevin Ireland’s fourth novel is a shrewd, searching and u... read more

"After they closed down the hospital, before selling it off to the bulldozers, a few of us broke in at night through a loose window at the back and ran around the corridors in the dim light playing ghosts and dead people. "That part was fun…" These are the opening lines of Mike Johnson’s sixth novel, Stench. The book begins simply and beguilingly in a small NZ town, but soon widens and deepens into a powerful tale of a whole town’s descent into fear and frenzy... read more

Travelling to England in 1830 with her brother, Anita Hobson is desperate and in love. She has been torn from her homeland by family who belives she will be implicated in the actions of her criminal fiance who has been transported to Australia. In a desperate bid to see him Anita takes a job as a governess in Australia.