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In 1925 Maria Concetta and Guiseppe Famularo arrived in New Zealand from the tiny volcanic island of Stromboli. They settled in Island Bay and were soon joined by other family members. As a strong family group they built new homes, new lives and raised young families. Eighty-five years later, Maria Concetta’s youngest son Dominic, alone and unwell, moved into a rest home. As if guided by the spirit of her great-aunt, the author arrived at 39 Brighton St, uncovering its hidden secrets, discovering her history and reflecting on her own life and future. 39 Brighton St is the fusion of an Italian heritage, person experiences and self-reflection linked with recipes, poetry and historical facts. ISBN: 9781927199183 -
Land-trapped mermaid Thala has the power to transform between Mer and human form. But what’s the point of having a power if you can’t use it? Thala struggles to accept her life on land and resents her Uncle forbidding her to delve into her family’s bloody past. She feels like a prisoner and longs for change.“We Mer are real. There’s nothing mythological about us. We’ve inhabited Earth’s seas for millions of years. But about one thousand years ago, all that changed.”
So, when visitors from a rival pod reveal a hidden agenda and plan a risky journey, Thala dives straight in. But it’s not until she’s face-to-face with her family’s lifelong enemy that she realises she’s in deep trouble and terrifyingly unfamiliar waters. ISBN: 978-0473307578 -
A Path Through the Trees
‘A Path Through the Trees: Mary Sutherland – Forester, Botanist & Women’s Advocate’ (Writes Hill Press 2020). Assistance received from the Stout Trust and the New Zealand Institute of Forestry. Awarded the 2021 ARANZ (Archives and Records Association of New Zealand) Ian Wards Prize) When seeing Mary Sutherland’s memorial plaque in the Redwood Forest at Whakarewarewa in 2009, Vivien wondered how a woman was employed by the New Zealand State Forest Service in 1923, when not a lot of women work in forestry today. ‘Mary Sutherland graduated from the University College of North Wales (now Bangor University) in 1916, and was the first woman forestry graduate in the world. In World War 1 she worked with a gang of women in Britain’s forests; on a Scottish Baronet’s estates; then with the developing British Forestry Commission. After losing her position due to the 1921 Geddes Economic report recommendations, Mary came to New Zealand in 1923 and was employed by the NZ State Forest Service. An educated woman with practical skills, created challenges for the men. Following the 1932 Economic Commission report, Mary again lost her position. She forged a new career at the Dominion Museum, and became the botanist, managing the Botanical Department and its Herbarium, while collecting specimens for exhibits on field trips, and corresponding with botanists worldwide. During World War 2, she supervised at the YWCA-administered War Workers’ Hostel in Woburn, then after the war, she was appointed the Department of Agriculture’s first farm forestry officer. A conservationist, and lover of trees, Mary maintained her New Zealand Institute of Foresters membership for the rest of her life: she served on the NZIF Council in 1935-36, and was vice president during 1941-42. Interested in the world, Mary travelled. She was on various committees and the executive, of the Wellington Branch of the Federation of University Women. Proud of her university training, she believed all women deserved higher education. She died in 1955. -
A collection of published and prize-winning stories from Jenny Argante, creative writing coach and mentor. -
Step up, as close as you dare… …to a place at the edge of sanity, where cicadas scritch across balmy summer nights, at the edge of town, where the cellphone coverage is decidedly dodgy, at the edge of space, where a Mimbinus argut bounds among snowy rocks, at the edge of the page, where demon princes prance in the shadows, at the edge of despair, where 10 darushas will get you a vodka lime and a ring side seat, at the edge of the universe, where time stops but space goes on… From the brink of civilisation, the fringe of reason, and the border of reality, come 23 stories infused with the bloody-minded spirit of the Antipodes, tales told by the children of warriors and whalers, convicts and miners: people unafraid to strike out for new territories and find meaning in the expanses at the edge of the world. Compiled by award-winning editing team Dan Rabarts and Lee Murray, and including a story by Arthur C. Clarke finalist Phillip Mann and foreword by World Fantasy Award winner Angela Slatter, At the Edge is a dark and dystopic collection from some of Australia and New Zealand’s best speculative writers. Note: This is an anthology of short stories for adults, not children. My story is Little Thunder, check it out on Page 211! ISBN: 978-0473354152 -
27 New Zealand and American authors delve into the strange, the unexpected, and the downright terrifying things that kids say in this collection of all new flash fiction for adult readers. From the mouths of babes come 37 stories, from the haunting to the hilarious to the horrific.Leave the lights on tonight. So you’ll see them coming.
ISBN: 978-0473256883 -
Feeling homesick is horrible. The new place is exciting but it isn't as good. The food is different, nothing is familiar, and people talk funny. It was like that when I moved to Wisconsin: I missed New Zealand so much! I missed my friends, the beach, rugby games, driving on the left-hand side, even food like Marmite and mince pies. Then I discovered Wisconsin's intriguing animal-shaped effigy mounds, ancient sites with no known purpose. I imagined these mounds were secret portals to other places and if I found the right one it would whisk me home to New Zealand. But people say you can never go home. Things change while you are away: new buildings go up, new roads develop, and people move on. So when I wrote Annie's adventure I thought I might explore this idea, while also drawing on my experience of trail running on forest tracks. I sent Annie back to a time when Moa and Te Hōkioi dominated the wild New Zealand bush. Eventually, I came to love Wisconsin with its red barns, yellow school buses and blue, blue lakes. I loved the sound of my shovel in the snow, cheesy bagels, fall leaves, sledding, and the lovely friends I made there. Perhaps it's time I looked for a New Zealand portal, so I can pop back for a visit! -
Battling the Big B: Hepatitis B in New Zealand
Award in History 2000, to research and write the book. (Department of Internal Affairs) and assistance from the Hepatitis Foundation. After a number of children were identified as Hepatitis B carriers, Sandy Milne, Head of the Whakatane Hospital laboratory, informed the Department of Health (now the Ministry), politicians and the media. He was met with scepticism and no response to his request for the Government to urgently commence screening and vaccination. After a longstanding battle, Sandy set up the Hepatitis Foundation and introduced screening and vaccination into schools before the Government’s vaccination programme started. -
What is the real reason there are traces of water on Mars? Would you try to eat a Splibob? Can his Machine of Awesomeness save Jimmy’s life? Where does Pauline the chicken really belong? Find out the answer to these and many more questions in this intriguing collection of intermediate school students’ writing. Forty-two science fiction and fantasy short stories from all over New Zealand take you on a wild ride… so belt up, buckle in and get ready to escape, run, hide, fight and fly through the future and Beyond the Stars… An anthology of wonderful New Zealand Intermediate School Writing edited by Chad Dick and Jan Goldie. Beyond the Stars 2016 is the fourth anthology of intermediate school writing in the Beyond This series. A wonderful collection of intriguing stories, it continues the sequence through which Tauranga Writers aims to encourage and support young writers throughout New Zealand. For this collection we asked students to cast their imaginations above and beyond the ordinary – to other planets, to a futuristic Earth, to alien home-worlds and beyond the stars. We received over 350 submissions from more than 50 schools and all the students received individual feedback. Cover design by Kodi Murray. ISBN: 978-0473354466 -
Every year we celebrate our ANZAC heroes and commemorate the fallen at Gallipolli, wearing poppies in their memory every ANZAC Day. But there were other heroes and heroines of the First World War whose stories have remained largely untold - the horses shipped to the Middle East to carry our troops who fought in the desert. Privately owned, they were often farm horses who followed their masters to war, and who fought and suffered alongside them in atrocious conditions. Brave Bess was the only one to return, and in telling her story, Susan Brocker brings to life a little known aspect of our military history, which is both courageous and poignant. With superb black and white photographs including Bess herself, who is today commemorated by her own memorial, Brave Bess and the ANZAC Horses celebrates the men and their mounts in an honest, ultimately challenging way, as the fate of the brave horses continues to sit uneasily with modern sensibilities. A compelling story in its own right, this book is also a superb teaching tool for anyone who wants to learn more about the First World War. -
Brave’s Journey is a new fantasy adventure for young teens… A boy. A weird tattoo. A silver necklace showing four elements: ‘Earth. Air. Fire. Water.’ When Brave woke up that first, life-changing day, he had no idea that pretty soon he’d be controlling the weather, talking to royalty and journeying to another world. Let alone riding a camel. Life in the mysterious world of Arvalonia, where magic springs from the nature around you, couldn’t be more different to his ordinary existence back home. Especially when he meets True… bossy, rich, driven teenager True who’s out to make his life a misery. Brave and True venture deep into enemy territory; facing a month without a bath, nipping stinkbuggies, evil ruler Mallevia’s ruthless green guards and eventually a battle with the vile queen herself. ISBN: 978-1925148848 -
In a frontier society full of colourful characters in early nineteenth century New Zealand, Jacky Marmon, more commonly known as Cannibal Jack, was more colourful than most. Jumping ship off the New Zealand coast, he first lived among Ngāpuhi at the Bay of Islands, where he acquired five wives and served his chief as a trader and white priest. Joining Hongi Hika's great Musket Wars campaigns against the Tamaki and Kaipara tribes, he claimed to have served as Hika's personal war tohunga. He survived to settle in the Hokianga from 1823 and was involved in Hone Heke's Flagstaff War of 1845. In this biography of a wonderfully curious character, the author of the bestselling Pākehā Māori traces Marmon's life and times, drawing on his own knowledge and research as well as on Marmon's own – not always reliable – personal accounts. -
White female Captives, Sex & Racism On The Nineteenth Century New Zealand frontier
The capture of white women by Māori in the nineteenth century was often accompanied by high hysteria and moral outrage. Trevor Bentley tells these women's stories, including those of Charlotte Badger, Ann Morley, Caroline Perrett and Elizabeth Guard, exploring contemporary myths that all of these women were mistreated and held against their will. The white settler population was at once fascinated and appalled by these stories: what did the women have to do to survive, how did they live and, well, what about sex? The settlers were obsessed with the virtue of these women and in the retelling of their experiences most enjoyable aspects of living with Māori were suppressed. Bentley reveals that two of these women actually chose to remain in the Māori world. -
Four science-fiction and fantasy novellas for young adults. At Conclave Manor, land-trapped Mermaid Thala Tellurian struggles to accept her privileged life while battling her self-obsessed Uncle in any petty way she can. Isolated and forbidden to delve into her family’s bloody past, Thala longs for change. So, when visitors from a rival pod reveal a hidden agenda, Thala dives straight in. But it’s not until she’s face to face with her family’s lifelong enemy that she realises she’s in terrifyingly unfamiliar waters. Rowan knew nothing about the secret in his DNA until he found himself on the Terrean team bound for Conclave Seven, the universal Games held every millennia. But on the eve of the Games, knowing he’s a direct descendant of the warrior Spartacus is looking less like a gift and more like a death sentence… Born into captivity, Doze has spent his life behind the Fence, so when staying there is no longer an option, he takes a chance to see if another life is possible. An experiment on the loose from ConClave Corporation, Doze helps his travelling companions to avoid capture, and discovers that there is no sacrifice too great for freedom. On the Conclave Pacifica, a spaceship in a fleet heading to a new world, Peach forges an online friendship with Araxi, who is travelling on another ship. But, wildly off course and under pressure for resources, the future of the Conclave Pacifica looks uncertain. Could Peach’s new friend be the answer to her survival? ISBN: 78-0473281984 -
We’re told that “The only true writer is a rewriter.” The ability to take your work from first draft to finished product and end up with ‘best words in the best order’ is what separates the amateur from the professional writer. This helpful introduction to the basics of revision includes checklists you can follow to ensure grammar, punctuation and spelling are correct and that your work is properly organised for maximum clarity and flow. Editing isn’t only a process; it’s also a role – and it’s editors you must please to get your work into print. To know what editors do and how editing works is the first step towards to writing success. -
DAM DISASTER is an Easy-Read for outdoor, active boys six to ten years old. It follows friends, Jay and Brandon, into the gully near Jay’s home where they build a dam in the small creek at the bottom. But all does not go to plan and they go on an unexpected journey. Book Synopsis: Jay and Brandon set off to build a dam in the gully near Jay’s home. Everything seems straight forward to begin with, but problems arise. Then they go on an unexpected journey. What happens next? Join the boys as they meet these challenges. This is a short Easy Read story to encourage the outdoors, active boy who is a reluctant reader, to find enjoyment in reading. ISBN 978-1-927215-41-8 Published with Oceanbooks. www.oceanbooks.co.nz also on www.wheelers.co.nz -
A fairy story that cleverly blends fantasy with fact and salutes the work of Peter Lester – Dr Dirt!
Finding they have the same soil problems as farmers, the fairies have been challenged to show humans how to re-balance it as Nature intended. When Doctor Peter Lester, soil expert, gets an email from them asking for assistance, curiosity sends him to Magic Toadstool Lane, Avocado Orchard #2012 in Katikati to find out what it’s about… A good lesson in earth science has been wound around a New Zealand based fairy story Doctor Peter’s Good Earth Magic is targeted at the 8 -12 years age range. ISBN: 978-0473335946 -
Featherston in the Second World War is a tough and bleak place for fourteen-year-old Bella. Her father is away fighting overseas, while his family fight to save their farm from ruin and keep his dreams alive. Bella, her mother, and older sister have to cope with a herd of dairy cows, an unscrupulous neighbour who covets the farm, and a crazy, bad-tempered racehorse called Gipsy. Bella is terrified of the horse and doesn't know where to turn. When help is offered from an unlikely source, will she have the courage to accept it or will Gipsy destroy her father's dreams? -
Edward Mouse likes to read about adventures. One day he decides to have an adventure of his own. He leaves his home in the suburbs and using everything from a backpack to a motorbike, he arrives on a dairy farm and becomes best friends with Billy the kid. What an adventure! ISBN: 978-1096259336 -
New Zealand's favourite story, celebrating all aspects of kapa haka is fun for the whole whanau to read together! These are the poi that circled and twirled, above the heads of the singing girls, who wore the piupiu that swished and swirled, made from the flax that Koro cut, that the mussel shell scraped, that the kuia made, that swung from the hips of the girls in the kapahaka. ISBN: 978-0-143773-870 -
AN ANCIENT PROPHECY. MYSTICAL ARMOUR. ONE GIRL. Poor and blind in one eye, 14-year-old Freya is an unlikely heroine. But she has outwitted the evil Master twice already. Now training to become an Adelphi, her courage and resilience are tested to the limit as she navigates the consequences of her choices. CAN SHE SECURE ALL THE PIECES OF THE ARMOUR in time to rescue her family and everyone else trapped in the Golden City? Book Three in the Realmshift Trilogy. -
Hannah and Huai
Hannah is in a mental health unit, in shock and rendered speechless following the sudden death of her husband and baby son one rainy night – for which she feels unspeak-able guilt. She pays little attention to her institutional surroundings as events play and replay inside her head. There is no way out, no way back, and no future she can possibly imagine, just an endless, unbearable present. Huia is also there, a long-term resident who lives entirely in her own inner world, a woman who seems unable to communicate. Her mutterings, her sleeve-plucking, her foot-tapping? Well, that’s just Huia. But who is she? What is her story and why does she play on Hannah’s mind? No one else pays attention to Huia’s condition, but Hannah is drawn to the mystery of the older woman … Huia has something to teach Hannah, if only Hannah pays attention – and she does. Gradually drawn out of her own web of misery, Hannah learns to read Huia and decides to follow the tiny clues back to the source and discover the truth of Huia. In the process, she uncovers the strange bonds that unite them and finds it might, after all, be possible to save her own life – that families can and should heal. And Huia is her path to redemption. Two women, two literally unspeakable tragedies, two families, one powerful and unforgettable story. No one should ever be made to feel invisible. And you are never alone. -
Helping Harmony — There’s More Than One Way to Save a Whale
Haunted by the death of a young Orca, Nikora Ahipene devotes his life to their study and preservation. Nine year old Ciara is also fascinated by these great mammals. After hearing Nikora speak to her class she decides to adopt an orca of her own. It’s not long before Nikora, Ciara, conservationists and local iwi collide when an orca pod strands on a narrow estuary. Suitable for 7-10 year olds. ISBN: 978-0-473883-86 -
More about Jay and Brandon’s adventures on the farm. This time Jay plans to build a hut in a tawa tree near his home. The challenge is the tree he has chosen is tall and scary, and the canopy’s branches too big to trim with a saw. Join Jay and Brandon as they discover a surprise solution to their problem. This is another Easy Read story to encourage the outdoors, active boy to find enjoyment in reading. Andria Brice’s sketches enhance the story with interest and empathy. ISBN: 978-0-473344-88-7 -
No longer content to rumble in anger, the great mountain warriors of New Zealand’s central plateau, the Kāhui Tupua, are preparing again for battle. At least, that’s how the Māori elders tell it. The nation’s leaders scoff at the danger. That is; until the ground opens and all hell breaks loose. The armed forces are hastily deployed; NZDF Sergeant Taine McKenna and his section tasked with evacuating civilians and tourists from Tongariro National Park. It is too little, too late. With earthquakes coming thick and fast and the mountains spewing rock and ash, McKenna and his men are cut off. Their only hope of rescuing the stranded civilians is to find another route out, but a busload of prison evacuees has other ideas. And, deep beneath the earth’s crust, other forces are stirring.“INTO THE ASHES is a kick-ass thriller with twists you will never see coming! Lee Murray serves up a nail-biter of a weird-science action adventure. Brava!” — Jonathan Maberry, New York Times best-selling author of DEEP SILENCE and V-WARS
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When NZDF Sergeant Taine McKenna and his squad are tasked with escorting a bunch of civilian contractors into Te Urewera National Park, it seems a strange job for the army. Militant Tuhoe separatists are active in the area, and with its cloying mist and steep ravines, the forest is a treacherous place in winter. Yet nothing has prepared Taine for the true danger that awaits them. Death incarnate. They backtrack toward civilisation, stalked by a prehistoric creature intent on picking them off one by one. With their weapons ineffective, the babysitting job has become a race for survival. Desperate to bring his charges out alive, Taine draws on ancient tribal wisdom. Will it be enough to stop the nightmare? And when the mist clears, will anyone be left? -
On leave, and out of his head with boredom, NZDF Sergeant Taine McKenna joins biologist Jules Asher, on a Conservation Department deer culling expedition to New Zealand’s southernmost national park, where soaring peaks give way to valleys gouged from clay and rock, and icy rivers bleed into watery canyons too deep to fathom. Despite covering an area the size of the Serengeti, only eighteen people live in the isolated region, so it’s a surprise when the hunters stumble on the nation’s Turehu tribe, becoming some of only a handful to ever encounter the elusive ghost people. But a band of mercenaries saw them first, and, hell-bent on exploiting the tribes’ survivors, they’re prepared to kill anyone who gets in their way. As a soldier, McKenna is duty-bound to protect all New Zealanders, but after centuries of persecution will the Turehu allow him to help them? Besides, there is something else lurking in the sounds, and it has its own agenda. When the waters clear, will anyone be allowed to leave?
“Murray pretty much nails small unit tactics.” Justin Coates, author of The Apocalypse Drive “A fantastic blend of military fiction, a very real primordial monster, and powerful mythology.” Paul Mannering, author of Hard Corps, Hell’s Teeth, and Eat.
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Kidnap at Mystery Island
Set in a time after the great global Environment Revolution of 2072, readers enter a high-tech world of eco criminals, artificial islands, global warming, rising seas, and patrolling coastal rangers. Like other children of his generation, Dom has a special talent chosen by his parents at conception. He is a human chameleon - possessing the ability to blend into any surroundings and become almost invisible. Unfortunately his Anti-Ec father is a mining billionaire set on ignoring new planet-saving laws who kidnaps a young girl, Zoe. Will Zoe who is a mind-reader and her sisters, who also have remarkable talents, be able to outwit the ruthless mining billionaire. Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon Award Winner 2021 Shortlisted for the 2023 NZ Book Awards for Children & Young Adults - Best First Book NZSA Award -
Letters from Elsewhere
This genre-blending collection is rich in characters who aren’t always what they seem at first glance. Space pirates, Fire Elves and living grotesques take us on journeys across the multiverse and deep into the hidden crevices of the mind. These stories interrogate what it is to be monstrous; and along the way, they confront the patriarchy and explore the spectrum of sexuality. If you like your fantasy and science fiction a bit dark, laced with humour and sometimes spicy, these stories will entertain, disturb and challenge you. “Jacqui Greaves titillates with this outstanding collection of speculative encounters, visits and ventures by otherworldly beings, each tale sharpening our understanding of the human condition and the tiny role we play in the universe. Cosmic, cautionary, and compelling, served up with a sprinkle of humour and a good dose of sauce, Letters from Elsewhere is a satisfyingly good read.” —Lee Murray, five-time Bram Stoker Award®-winning author of Grotesque: Monster Stories.
Like spiders we spin yarn from deep within
