Authors: Rebecca Rice, Matiu Baker, Katie Cooper, Michael Fitzgerald Reviewer: David Veart

This selection transcends its colonial origins literally in 'The Colonial Museum' creating a powerful narrative using the artefacts woven together with subtle curation and a strong Māori voice, a voice which doesn't simply murmur 'ghostly' echoes from the past but instead speaks truth powerfully into the present.

March 2024 release

Author: Gavin Strawhan. Reviewer: Ruth Shaw

Strawhan's crime novel is cinematic, which comes as no surprise given his previous writing credits. The co-creator of Go Girls and Nothing Trivial, he also has form in the TV crime thriller genre, including Bad Mothers and This Is Not My Life. While The Call doesn't read like a screenplay, it could easily become one. The scenes are sharp, ending with an eye to the cut: a wry line and then a clean shift to a deserted beach, a flashback, or a suburban gang house.

March 2024 release

Author: romesh dissanayake. Reviewer: David Hill

“The format is intriguingly diverse: emails, texts, passages of verse are scattered throughout. An immediate, coming-at-ya present tense keeps the plot belting along. Dissanayake knows when to pause, to leave things for the reader. He manages some excellent imagery”

March 2024 release

Author: Ineke Meredith Reviewer: Himali McInnes

“Being entrusted with another person’s life, plunging your hands into their body cavities while they are in a sedated coma, takes a lot of nerve. A confident exterior belies the very human doctor underneath. This beautifully written memoir deftly paints human flesh and vulnerability onto those God-like creatures we see in scrubs and reminds us that medical professionals do bring their whole selves into each patient encounter.”

March 2024 release

Author: Lauren Keenan Reviewer: Carole Brungar

“I feel as though I stepped through a portal to glimpse the poverty and hardship experienced in an 1860s Taranaki settlement on the brink of the New Zealand Wars.”

March 2024 release

Author: Trevor Auger Reviewer: Chris Long

“Auger keeps the central narrative thread squarely focused on reporting matches, with The Three Quicks subsequently aimed more at the patient test cricket purists over casual white ball enthusiasts with shorter attention spans. Heavily results and statistics-focused, it harks back to a time when cricket almanacs were poured over, and test cricket wasn't staring down the existential threats it now faces.”

March 2024 release

Author: Eileen Merriman. Reviewer: Briar Lawry.

If you're a fan of slow-burn, character-driven thrillers, you will have a great time with The Night She Fell. There may not be any Jack Reacher action sequences but you'll be on the edge of your seat as you reach the end.

March 2024 release

Author: Kate Evans. Reviewer: Jo McCarroll.

Botany, science, history, politics, human rights, philosophy and even economics (although the feijoa's incredible economic potential – while widely agreed to exist – is generally thought to not yet have been realised) are all deftly woven into and around Evans' personal narrative, which is itself sprinkled with arcane and intriguing asides

February 2024 release

Author: Erin Palmisano Reviewer: Emma Rawson

This story has love and heart, and gorgeous descriptions of the little magical village make you feel like you're exploring the cobbled streets of Potamia alongside Jory. This is author Palmisano's own supernatural talent, bringing places to life. The delicious passages about food and baking where the language is stripped bare to its raw ingredients are also a treat.

February 2024 release

Author: Joshiah Morgan Publisher: Dead Bird Books

Bold and queer, i’m still growing pushes back against the conventions of autobiographical poetry to offer a distorted mirror to a messy world. Morgan shares his poem ‘wraith’ which he describes as a grief poem, a eulogy to friends that have passed on or are in the process of passing on.

Released 1 March 2024

Author: Anna Crighton. Publisher: Canterbury University Press

For decades, whenever a heritage building in Christchurch has been under threat, one woman has consistently defended this city’s architecture and history against shortsightedness and the threat of bulldozers – Dame Anna Crighton. This abridged extract from Chapter 17 of Still Standing chronicles Crighton’s personal experiences in the February 2011 earthquake and the rebuild of heritage treasure, the Isaac Theatre Royal.

Released: 1 February

Author: S.L. Beaumont. Reviewer: Jessie Neilson.

This novel incorporates two main timelines, one set in the middle of the 20th century and the other set in 1989. The historical backdrop of war-era Bletchley Park and its remarkable team of codebreakers is fascinating. Author SL Beaumont spends sufficient time developing this setting. Similarly, the Cold War era and its aftermath provide rich material that expands throughout the book's second half.

February 2024 release

Author: Patricia Grace. Reviewer: Jade Kake

This beautiful new collection by Patricia Grace is divided into three sections, each positioned from a different time or context. Fans of Patricia Grace will be immediately won over by this rich and immensely readable collection, writes Jade Kake.

February 2024 release

Author: Lynn Davidson . Publisher: Te Herenga Waka Press

Do You Still Have Time for Chaos? tells the story of poet and teacher Lynn Davidson’s late-life decision to leave Aotearoa New Zealand, with scant resources, to build a life in Scotland. In 2020, in the frightening quiet of a Covid-emptied Edinburgh, she begins her memoir; temporarily at home at the Randell Cottage residency in Wellington, she completes it.

Read ‘My last night in Edinborough’ extracted from Do You Still Have Time for Chaos?

Released: 8 February

Authors: Various Reviewer: Emma Rawson

Summer road trips are made for audiobooks. Listening to stories is a way to break up your journey one chapter at a time, ideal for drivers with eyes focused on the road and passengers who get motion sickness while reading in a moving vehicle. Audiobooks are one of the fastest-growing book formats internationally, booming in popularity following the pandemic, and there's a growing appetite for local audio stories in Aotearoa too.

Author: Greg Ryan. Publisher: Auckland University Press.

In this extract from Chapter 2 of Continuous Ferment: historian Greg Ryan examines Aotearoa’s early days as a beer-drinking nation, exploring the trials and tribulations of importing beer by ship as well as early home and commercial brewing efforts.

November 2023 release

Author: Abbas Nazari. Reviewer: Graham Reid

“Within his story, Nazari pulls back to offer the bigger picture: the history of Afghanistan, the rise of the Taliban, convoluted global politics, demonisation of migrants, this country’s generous treatment of refugees, Afghanistan today and the Christchurch mosque killings. But he sketches into his writing small yet telling incidents from that childhood of flight and fear.”

January 2024 release

‘My heart swelled with gratitude at how this little child continued to walk with me through such tough terrain without complaining or questioning what on earth we were doing this for.’

Read an extract from Adventures with Emilie by Victoria Bruce.

Released August 2023

Author: Jane Robertson. Reviewer: Bob Frame.

This sumptuous social and environmental history of Whakaraupō Lyttelton Harbour takes the reader around the harbour that separates Ōtautahi Christchurch from Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū Banks Peninsula.

October 2023 release

Author: Claire McCall

In May 2022, Kiwi journalist Claire McCall and her partner set off on an epic walking adventure to tackle a freshly minted long-distance trail called the Hexatrek in its pioneer year. The 3034km route connects the highest, most spectacular mountains and national parks in France and travels through the Vosges, the Alps, the Écrins and the Pyrenees among others.

December 2023 release