Nigel Owens is one of the best referees in world rugby. But before reaching the highest echelons of the game, he went through a personal crisis and 'came out' as gay - the first to do so in the macho world of professional rugby. His bravery earned him great respect from players, officials and supporters alike.

In this warm, funny and painfully honest autobiography, he speaks frankly about his struggle to accept himself for who he was, leading to attempted suicide, bulimia and steroid addiction. Owens also recounts many amusing incidents from rugby matches, foreign trips and his off-field career as an entertainer.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 221

Dimensions: 140 x 215 mm

Publication Date: 30-01-2013

Writer Elspeth Sandys was born during the Second World War, the result of a brief encounter between two people who would never meet again. The first nine months of her life were spent in the Truby King Karitane Hospital in Dunedin, where she was known by her birth name, Frances Hilton James. This would change with her adoption into the Somerville family. A new birth certificate was issued and Frances James became Elspeth Sandilands Somerville.

Tom and Alice Somerville, Elspeth's new parents, lived with their son John in Dunedin's Andersons Bay. While Elspeth was happy among the ebullient and welcoming Somerville clan, she had a difficult relationship with her adoptive mother, who was frequently hospitalised with mental health problems.

Elspeth's search for her birth parents did not begin until much later in her adult life. What she discovered after an exhaustive search provided answers that were both disturbing and, ultimately, rewarding.

What Lies Beneath is a searing, amusing, and never less than gripping tale of a difficult life, beautifully told.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 224

Dimensions: 165 x 215 mm

Publication Date: 15-09-2014

Explorer Jules-Sebastien-Cesar Dumont d'Urville (1790-1842) is sometimes called France's Captain Cook. Born less than a year after the beginning of the French Revolution, he lived through turbulent times. He was an erudite polymath: a maritime explorer fascinated by botany, entomology, ethnography and the diverse languages of the world. As a young ensign he was decorated for his pivotal part in France's acquisition of the famous Venus de Milo.

D'Urville's voyages and writings meshed with an emergent French colonial impulse in the Pacific. In this magnificent biography Edward Duyker reveals that d'Urville had secret orders to search for the site for a potential French penal colony in Australia. He also effectively helped to precipitate pre-emptive British settlement on several parts of the Australian coast. D'Urville visited New Zealand in 1824, 1827 and 1840. This wide-ranging survey examines his scientific contribution, including the plants and animals he collected, and his conceptualisation of the peoples of the Pacific: it was he who first coined the terms Melanesia and Micronesia.

D'Urville helped to confirm the fate of the missing French explorer Laperouse, took Charles X into exile after the Revolution of 1830, and crowned his navigational achievements with two pioneering Antarctic descents.

Edward Duyker has used primary documents that have long been overlooked by other historians. He dispels many myths and errors about this daring explorer of the age of sail and offers his readers grand adventure and surprising drama and pathos.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 664

Dimensions: 170 x 245 mm

Publication Date: 15-09-2014

Frost can be fatal to a fledgling wine business... gorgeous glitter with a high price tag. On a winter’s day it is beautiful, but on a spring day after bud burst it spells devastation.



For Sean and Caro Feely, a couple whose love affair with wine and France has taken them through financial and physical struggle to create their organic vineyard, it could spell the end. Until they receive an unexpected call that could save their skins…



This book is about life, love and taking risks, while transforming a piece of land into a flourishing vineyard and making a new life in France. Caro Feely is a certified wine educator and writes from the organic vineyard and wine school in France that she set up with her husband. She spent 15 years working as a business and IT consultant with multinationals such as IBM and Accenture before following her dream to make wine in France.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 320

Publication Date: 07-07-2014

Andrew Nicholson is one of the world's leading event riders. He rode in his first Olympics aged 23 in Los Angeles in 1984, and has represented his native New Zealand in six Olympic Games and six world championships, winning medals of every colour. Andrew is respected and admired by his peers and sporting fans as a brilliant rider and competitor. At the age of 54 he is at the peak of his powers and, with the best team of horses he has ever had, is focused on winning one of the very few prizes to elude him an individual gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. This book tells the story of the boy from a farm in New Zealand who came to Britain as a raw 18-year-old and conquered one of the most demanding sports in the world. Illustrated with superb photographs of Andrew's career and life with horses, it reveals how he got to the top and how hard he still strives to up his game. We discover the personalities of his top horses, and the secrets he has learnt in his 35 years as a horseman. Foreword by Captain Mark Phillips.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 160

Dimensions: 189 x 246 mm

Publication Date: 28-08-2014

After six years in the idyllic Loire Valley, comedian Ian Moore, his family and his ever-expanding menagerie are beginning to feel like they’re on the cusp of the peace and tranquillity they hoped for when they moved from dreary Crawley to la belle France. Their grand project, a writing school called Les Champs Créatifs, is finally complete – only, nobody’s signed up. Natalie and the boys must contend with the ever-colourful locals, including a Sicilian faith healer, threatening hunters and the ‘Christmas Pudding Man’, and Ian must test his mod mettle against two new additions to the animal family – a pair of disappearing goats. With stresses, strains and animal poo mounting up la famille Moore have their work cut out – but they’re determined to give it their best shot!

Bind: paperback

Pages: 320

Dimensions: 129 x 198 mm

Publication Date: 04-08-2014

*Explores the growth and development and changes in one man’s faith over 87 years

*Debates and analyses, in the light of modern scholarship, key Christian doctrines.

*Speculates on the possible survival or otherwise of the Christian church in the world

Ewing’s life has known many twists and turns. He is still an ordained Presbyterian minister and has been a minister in another calling since 1979.
His faith has been shaped through illness for 5 years with tuberculosis, his theological training for the church, his experiences of the suicidal death of a son, the death of his wife and remarriage, the controversy over a book he wrote about the life of Jesus, his work over nearly 20 years with questioning and rebellious youth and 50 years of radio broadcasting.
Ewing has always questioned his Christian faith and some of the ancient doctrines of the Christian church in the light of the scientific age. The virgin birth of Jesus, the miracles, stories of Jesus’ resurrection and place of the Christian church in a world of many beliefs.
His aim is to encourage his readers to question what they believe and to be honest in their thinking about faith. And to encourage the adoption of a belief system that leads to a moral approach to the whole of life through this philosophical auto biography.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 191

Dimensions: 148 x 210 mm

Publication Date: 21-05-2014

Everyone has demons. Few people admit to them, let alone conquer them. Because one person succumbed to his, a handsome young farmer, Scott Guy, was cut down in the prime of life in the driveway of his Feilding home on July 8, 2010. The tragedy held New Zealand spell bound - particularly the arrest and murder trial of Scott’s brother-in-law, Ewen MacDonald; the exposure of intimate details of the Guy family’s lives; and the dignity with which its patriarch, Bryan, conducted himself throughout.
Scott Guy is Bryan and Jo Guy’s story. It reveals much more than came out at the murder trial; it gives a uniquely intimate view of how the murder affected them, their family and friends. It discloses previously unknown details of what went on behind the scenes. It reveals how the Guys overcame their own personal demons, how they mined inner strength to cope with the stress, grief, fear and the heartbreak of not only the violent death of a cherished son, but of a series of personal catastrophes which followed.
They share their unique story in the hope of helping others struggling with the vagaries of life. This, they believe, may give meaning to the apparent senselessness of all that has happened within their family.

NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER.

SCOTT GUY: His Parents' Story of Love, Betrayal, Murder and Courage, reaches number 1 in the Nielsen Weekly Bestsellers List* and selling out fast.

Readers comments include: ''WOW, WOW, and bloody WOW. What a read, given and shared by truly incredible people'' - Brian Walker.

''I've finished reading "Scott Guy" and am pretty blown away by it. I would recommend any of your customers grab a copy with both hands. Their choice to not focus on bitterness, their courage and how they work hard everyday to deal with multiple losses is an inspiration. Amazing!'' - Lynette Lander.

''A Heartfelt book'' - Sunday Herald.

''Tony Farrington reveals another side of the story...details never revealed before'' - Weekend Herald.

*(NZ Non-Fiction for Adults week ending 26th Oct)

Bind: paperback

Pages: 200

Publication Date: 14-10-2013

Ivan Sutherland was the first Pakeha scholar to recognise that Maori New Zealanders are not brown-skinned Pakeha but heirs to their own cultural beliefs, customs and practices.
Born in 1897, Sutherland was a brilliant scholar who studied at Victoria University College and Glasgow University before returning to Victoria to work under his mentor, Professor Thomas Hunter. He shared Hunter's liberal convictions and engaged in various progressive community initiatives, including establishing New Zealand's first children's psychological clinic, attacking the rise of the eugenics movement, helping launch the Wellington Film Society, and campaigning for public radio. During the 1930s he was part of a young group of lively intellectuals including John Beaglehole, Horace Belshaw, R.M. Campbell and W.B. Sutch.
His commitment to social psychology drew him into the world of Ngati Porou, where Apirana Ngata became his second mentor and a life-long friend. Dismayed by what he considered to be undeserved criticism of Ngata in the report of a 1934 commission of inquiry into the Native Affairs Department, Sutherland published The Maori Situation, denouncing Pakeha 'racialism' and affirming his commitment to a bicultural New Zealand. Later he master-minded and edited The Maori People Today, published as New Zealand celebrated the 1940 centennial.
In 1937 Sutherland became professor of philosophy at Canterbury University College, appointed at the same time as Karl Popper, with whom he had a difficult relationship. Nevertheless the two worked together spearheading a committee dedicated to bringing Jewish war refugees from Hitler's Germany into New Zealand.
After several decades working tirelessly to gain Pakeha tolerance and understanding of Maori aspiration, Sutherland died unexpectedly aged 54. This impressive biography reveals Ivan Sutherland as a sensitive, compassionate man, and an enthusiastic and far-sighted advocate for Maori self-determination.
As a mark of respect for Ivan Sutherland, Ngati Porou gave him the name of one of their legendary tipuna: Paikea.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 480

Dimensions: 152 x 228 mm

Publication Date: 21-10-2013

DoP - November 2008, NZ Private Melville King of Carterton was a tiny part of New Zealand's huge manpower contribution to the Allied armies in World War One. His diary, recording what he did and what he saw, reflects the military service of an ordinary young man half the globe away from home and in extraordinary circumstances. His perceptive and detailed view of the Great War adds an important 'voice' to the New Zealand understanding of that tragic and crucial event. Melve King's words are supported by additional text explaining facets of his army life and the major campaigns and battles of the New Zealand Division on the Western Front. Melve faithfully recorded many of the Wairarapa men he served with and these are detailed in an extensive personnel index.

Pages: 232

Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm

Publication Date: 09-11-2008