Poet, fiction writer, critic, essayist, teacher and academic, C.K. Stead has made his mark on all these disciplines. While he has already written or edited over fifty books, there is no sitting on his laurels for this nonagenarian. Instead, he wore them as New Zealand Poet Laureate from 2015–2017 and has continued to celebrate poetry and poets through blogs, reviews and essays. He has also returned to his exploration of the life and work of Katherine Mansfield, and to writing and revisiting short fiction as well as an ‘approximation’ of a play first written in French by Racine. Combining this eclectic material into one fascinating collection, this prize-winning wordsmith continues to provoke, delight and stimulate.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 304

Dimensions: 152 x 229 mm

Publication Date: 25-03-2024

Dunedin, 1890: Suddenly orphaned at the tender age of twenty, Greer Gillies is reduced to working as a humble servant at Larnach Castle, a far cry from the dreams she held before. As she struggles with the stark reality of grief, she finds her journey has only just begun as the decade proves transformative for women’s progress. As she grapples with affairs of the heart, betrayal, the threat of lost love and social upheavals, Greer’s resilience shines through. She becomes a symbol of courage, daring to pursue her dreams, follow her heart and find her place in a world that promises a better future. Spanning the last decade of the 19th century, this page-turning saga explores the healing power of friendship while celebrating the pivotal role women played in one of New Zealand’s most turbulent eras.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 288

Dimensions: 152 x 229 mm

Publication Date: 11-03-2024

Articulate and intelligent, Eve Poole had a passion for the theatre and the arts. Her desire to protect one of Invercargill’s cultural icons led her into politics and she was elected as the city’s first woman mayor in 1983. Cath Tizard broke similar ground in Auckland that year – the two becoming trailblazers at each end of the country. As a member of the QEII Arts Council (later Creative New Zealand), Eve played an active role in encouraging the visual and performing arts across the country. She was equally at home on the stage as an actor and director; on hugely popular national TV shows such as Beauty and the Beast, and as a member of the NZ Committee on Women, an early forerunner of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, during the UN Decade for Women. She gained national prominence for her leadership when the 1984 floods ravaged her adopted city and the surrounding region. Vivienne Allan tells the story of her mother’s life with warmth and honesty, beginning with the struggle to find passage out of Germany in the 1930s. When war broke out Eve, still only 17 and living with her family in Tel Aviv, joined the British Army, serving as a driver in Egypt. There she met the New Zealander who was to become her husband and, after discharge, moved to Invercargill to raise their family with him. Eve’s practicality, determination and humanity saw her retain the mayoralty for four terms until her untimely death in 1992.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 448

Dimensions: 152 x 228 mm

Publication Date: 15-07-2020

Afghanistan, 1827. Suleiman stood in the carnage of his village. At twenty years old he was a man. “I am Suleiman! I take my birthright as Horse Master of all Farkhar". He raised his sword, pointing west to Persia. “No longer will Prince Omid’s men plunder Afghanistan. We will follow you, Persians. We will seize your horses and restore our honour. We will invade!” Welcome to The Saffron Runners, the adventures of a bold band of brothers who make a fantastic journey from Hindu Kush to desert to fabled cities and back across the Border of Flags. There is only one thing on their minds: The horses. And only one Horse Master who can lead them. A tale of daring, deception, desperation and incredible action, The Saffron Runners will have your heart pounding as you urge the heavenly horses on, gallop with the drinkers of the wind, and thrill to hot-blooded chases spiced with mystery and romance … and always, always, the lure of a destiny to be fulfilled. Outstandingly well researched and brimming with historical detail, if you want a real page-turner, this is it.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 336

Dimensions: 153 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 04-12-2020

Respectable families hold on to their myths, contain the violence, uphold the Establishment. There was always going to be a story. It couldn’t be overlooked, and this one will set the skeletons rattling and the gin bottles clinking up and down the country. The story is exposed through the life and times of Nicholas Lyon Gresson, enlivened by his passion for justice. Overall it is a story of survival. This memoir is a New Zealand social history with first-hand accounts of crime and justice, psychiatry, advocacy for those who suffer injustice, community and family. It is also a saga of five generations of the well-known Gresson family giving an authentic context to the life of the author’s father, Justice Terence A. Gresson, who was appointed to the Supreme Court judiciary in 1956 at forty-two and died by suicide at fifty-three. His forebear Henry Barnes Gresson emigrated from Irish soil in the 1850s and became first resident judge of Canterbury. Justice Sir Kenneth Gresson became president of the Court of Appeal, and another great-uncle, Justice Sir John Edward Denniston, was knighted for services to the judiciary. Unforgettable characters from all walks of life claim an authentic place with their idiosyncrasies and inclinations. Anecdotes, letters and diaries provide insights into Canterbury’s founding fabric and inherited values. The author sought a life pursuing challenges abroad, learning first-hand the vagaries of survival on foreign shores. But there is always a price to be paid for desertion. Following his father’s tragic death Nick endured the greatest of trials. The reader is left gasping as events unfold. This comprehensive exploration of a life on a road less travelled confronts the reader with tender and brutal honesty, sustaining an irresistible momentum to the final pages – all this reverberating upon a rich setting of family ground.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 776

Dimensions: 153 x 234 mm

Publication Date: 18-10-2022

Based on Les Hill’s 63 years of fly fishing in New Zealand, HOOKED FOR LIFE is packed with interesting, amusing and informative anecdotes. The book resonates with the sheer joy of hunting and catching trout, while imparting a lifetime’s worth of invaluable lessons on how to go about it. The reader will not only benefit from the author’s years of experience with nymph and dry fly, but will enjoy soaking up the special atmosphere he evokes and relive vicariously the primal contest between angler and fish. Along the way they’ll learn to think like a trout and understand the nature of the world it lives in; get some tips on streamside photography; and come to appreciate the author’s view that it is often more satisfying to catch one special fish than a large number on a particular day, or that the trout that gets away can provide as much fun as several brought to a net. In the second part of the book, Dr Graham Macdonald’s thoughtful chapters on fishing and wellness give an insight into the therapeutic benefits of fly fishing, an unusual angle not often explored in fly fishing literature. From page one, HOOKED FOR LIFE is lavishly illustrated with over 120 superb large-format colour photographs that not only invite one into the book, but also reveal the beauty of our rivers, streams, lakes and countryside, and encourage the reader to head out to experience the wonderful world of fly fishing. The perfect gift for any angler. "A marvel of a book, illustrated with superb photography and written with quiet wisdom, story-telling art, information and love. A treasure trove gathered from more than 60 years of perfect pleasure." - Kevin Ireland, author of How To Catch A Fish ABOUT THE AUTHOR Les Hill is a retired school teacher. He lives on a two-acre block close to Hokitika with panoramic views of the Southern Alps and the Tasman Sea. He enjoys life in the outdoors – trout fishing, whitebaiting, sea fishing and hunting. He always carries a camera. He is the author or co-author of seven previous, highly acclaimed books on trout fishing. Les was a regular contributor to Fish and Game magazine and has had numerous articles and photographs published in books and magazines both in NZ and abroad.

Bind: hardback

Pages: 208

Dimensions: 210 x 256 mm

Publication Date: 01-11-2020

Upriver will appeal to everyone who loves New Zealand’s South Island/Te Waipounamu and wants to find out more about the formation of its diverse landscapes and the story of human settlement since the very first landings about eight centuries ago. It will also provide all the information needed by those wishing to retrace the author’s footsteps, either in the easily accessible regions of the west or east coasts, or in the more challenging mountainous regions of the South Island/Te Waipounamu. An absorbing blend of trip descriptions laced with background notes about the meaning and significance of places that were encountered, it tells the story of the author’s journeys to the principal sources of each of the 24 rivers that flow down to the sea from the Main Divide of the Southern Alps. Each of the 24 chapters in this book paints a full-length portrait of the water catchment areas of the 24 rivers that flow all the way down to the sea from the Main Divide of the Southern Alps/Kā Tiritiri o te Moana, including its highest peaks and lowest Main Divide passes. Those portraits fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to form a comprehensive picture of this unique island. Safe backcountry trips require detailed knowledge of the terrain, situational awareness, teamwork, and contingency plans. The backcountry trips that are described in this book were spread over five decades, mainly in late summer-early autumn when weather conditions are usually more favourable. Only experienced, well-equipped parties should undertake them when they go further than river lowlands. "Every now and then a book comes along that is fresh and original, presenting a different perspective on a topic well traversed. Upriver is one of these. A wonderful book chock full of meticulously researched facts about the Southern Alps and the rivers draining from them, it brings out both Maori and Pakeha perspectives on the land… Full of fascinating details of old and new histories, with explanations of the names bestowed on the landscape, all held together by a matrix of the authors own journeys. I thoroughly enjoyed it". – Geoff Spearpoint

Bind: paperback

Pages: 384

Dimensions: 170 x 240 mm

Publication Date: 15-08-2020

Poems greet Kevin Ireland in the morning with a crafty smile, or fly into his kitchen out of nowhere. Some dream themselves into his mind, or twist a bottle-cap and offer to share a cup of friendship. Lively words vie for places in his poems, or catch alight from cheerful thoughts. They are never predictable, because... Incongruity lies at the heart of poetry. Words in verse so often can suggest a kind of double-take on what we think we’ve seen – and aim to open up our minds to the uncustomary. Kevin Ireland’s 27th collection is brimful of poems that do all this and more. Whether he is writing about writing, ruminating on the mixed blessings of ageing, or reflecting on love and other viruses, Kevin’s poems are peppered with wry humour and celebrate a sparkling pleasure in life, with all its contradictions, balls-ups, mysteries, happiness and richness.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 80

Dimensions: 160 x 235 mm

Publication Date: 04-11-2021

“The Spanish Garden is about memory and how it serves and deceives us. It is about the casualties of war, both the dead and the living, and the need to acknowledge the unnamed and the disappeared. It is about buried secrets and their patient wait to be told. “But it is also about the beauty of places which unite people, and how we are marked for life by the youthful experience of intense love and passion, even, or especially, when it is lost.” One day, one life, one hundred years. On a hot summer morning, in a garden overlooking the Kaipara Harbour, Sidney King reluctantly prepares to mark his 100th birthday. In the same moment, on the opposite side of the world in Spain, a discovery is made which could unlock a mystery that has haunted him for 80 years. Volunteers disinterring skeletons of Spanish Civil War victims unearth a locket which has its own story to tell. As the day’s tides advance and recede and visitors, welcome and unwelcome, arrive and depart, the old man walks with his ghosts, reliving episodes from his long life. He is also forced to confront, for the first time, the secrets buried within the land upon which he has created his famous garden. Set on a single day in 2016, in a time when the deadly political divisions of the past are being redrawn, The Spanish Garden tells a story of memory and loss, the generational impact of war, the fatal history shared between two families, Pākehā and Māori, and a man’s enduring obsession with love.

Bind: paperback

Pages: 256

Dimensions: 152 x 229 mm

Publication Date: 10-05-2023

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.

Bind: paperback

Publication Date: 10-07-2023