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Novel hard to put down

4/9/2026

Under a Deadly Sky
by Jenny Harrison

Under a Deadly Sky is a book I would describe as easy to pick up, hard to put down. It starts with its appealing cover design of a young boy with fear on his face, with his dog, running for his life. In the background are bombed and burning buildings with aeroplanes flying overhead.
Young Noah is growing up in London when war is declared and the story line rapidly progresses into his situation. He has a loving mother, a drunken abusive father, a supportive teacher and his now missing baby sister whom he loves dearly and misses her.
Was she evacuated to the countryside with hundreds of other children or is her disappearance more sinister?
Like all good stories it contains elements of romance, love, hate, murder, abuse, destruction and throw in a German spy for good measure.
We are given glimpses of what it was like to live during the London blitz as it portrays the strength and stoicism of the Londoners as they stand up to “Mr Hitler” and surviving while surrounded by death and destruction.
Noah’s story is told at times in his own words. His love for his mother, teacher, baby sister and dog makes for compelling reading
It was a nice change to read of chaste romances with no lurid sex scenes that is so common in literature these days.
I read this book in 2 days and late into the night and gave a satisfactory sigh at the ending as it all dove tailed together.
A book I am sure the reader will enjoy.

Review by Merilyn Mary

Title: Under a Deadly Sky
Author: Jenny Harrison
Publisher: Lamplighter Press
ISBN: paperback - 978-0-473-78600-7 ebook - 978--0473-78601-4
RRP: $28
Available: Amazon or from the author at www.jennyharrison-author.com

Memories to make you smile

28/8/2026

Sunshine Road
by Catherine Manchester

Did your glass overflow with Müller-Thurgau in the late-1970s? If it did, and you hadn’t long turned 20, Sunshine Road will bring back a lot of memories to make you smile. But don’t be lulled by the title: this semi-autobiographical novel isn’t all sunshine and carefree laughter.
From the toffee apples and Punch & Judy at the school fair when we first meet Sarah and Becky as 10-year-olds, we watch them skip and scramble through late-1960s childhood in Eastbourne, Wellington. With her only sister nearly 10 years older and about to leave home and with her unhappy parents, Sarah is almost a neglected only child. In contrast, Becky’s family is close knit, boisterous and all-embracing: it’s Sarah’s happy place. Trips to the beach and long walks around the coast are a constant backdrop to their chatter and plans. All too soon, however, Becky moves to Nelson and Sarah is left to fend for herself as she explores her first love, wild parties and career choices, and experiences her parents’ separation.
Set largely in Wellington, Sunshine Road sees Sarah grow in her determination to pursue the career of her dreams, to ignore the “You-need-to-get-a-proper-job” sayers, and grapple with the much-changed Becky whose betrayal when she returns from the South Island will devastate Sarah and haunt her for years to come.
Described as semi-autobiographical, as well as the fictional characters, there are cameos of Dorothy Taylor (artist) and Elsie Locke (feminist and political activist) as well as the upheaval of the 1981 Springbok tour. Like the author, Sarah is a writer and her thoughts, poured onto the page in her most introspective moments, appear throughout the book, giving us a greater in-depth look at Catherine Manchester the writer rather than the novelist.
Did you watch Midnight Cowboy and Rosemary’s Baby as new releases? Do you remember when friends wrote letters to each other? When “scraps of history [were] allocated to women and their lives”? When lentil curry was a novelty, along with vegetarians? There is much for you to remember here.
Sunshine Road is a word portrait growing out of Catherine Manchester’s cover painting entitled Youth: a transition from child to young adult, where, in spite of the title, there are persistent pockets of darkness.

Review by Carolyn McKenzie

Title: Sunshine Road,
Author: Catherine Manchester
Publisher: Catherine Manchester
ISBN: 9780473770334
RRP: $34
Available: some selected bookshops; order from Copy Press Nelson

Well-constructed novel

21/8/2026

Flood Zone
by Brett Austin

I picked up Brett Austin’s book Flood Zone gingerly. Its sub-title “a climate change thriller” was the problem. I am, like so many others, suffering from climate-change alarmism fatigue. I'm tired of the finger-wagging and the cost. But I was pleasantly surprised. Climate change is not at the forefront of this book, although Austin makes a very good point about corrupt councils allowing housing to be built in floodplains.
Brett Austin has written a well-constructed book, full of vivid characterization and, while he doesn’t wax long and eloquent on description, gives the reader enough to let imagination play.
Ex-cop Sam Cole lives in a small Coromandel town, hunkered down in his mother’s home after his dismissal from the Force. He doesn’t want to be involved in the suspicious death of a councilor who has ruffled feathers in the small town. But Cole’s gut feeling and instincts are those of a genuine policeman. And there is something very wrong with the development of housing on a floodplain and the developers who are managing it. Soon Cole finds himself knee deep in a private investigation into all their nefarious deeds.
Although this is a gritty-bloke-book, full of brutality and nasty people, there is love and duty and a strong streak of humanity throughout. Cole is an engaging fellow who has faults and fragilities just like the rest of us, who is living in a typical Kiwi town that has been invaded by East Coast thugs and is in dire need of rescuing. And must do something about it.
I usually judge a character in a book by wondering if I could invite them home. Sam Cole is welcome any day.

Review by JA Harrison

Title: Flood Zone
Author: Brett Austin
Publisher: Harbour Lights
ISBN: 978-0473783297
RRP: $35.00
Available: Amazon

Gripping thriller set in Auckland

14/8/2026

LIT
by Anna Woods

Anna Woods’ first novel keeps you on the edge of your seat and keeps you reading way past bedtime to find out what will happen next.
LIT is the name of an architectural firm. Three initials for the three founders, except one of them has disappeared. Or has Billy Lovelace disappeared? Anna keeps you guessing right the way through the book. Billy may have reappeared. Or is Virginia Ishak (Gin) hallucinating about what scares her most?
Clarissa Taylor (Clary) is the third member of the firm. Clary and Gin are lovers, or barely lovers at the point you enter the book given they spend more time turning their backs on each other than in an embrace. Clary is depicted as mentally unstable having been sent into a deep spiral when Billy, with whom she was in a relationship, suddenly vanished. Gin, Clary and Billy are a tight knit circle of damaged people, all of whom have a vicious streak.
Anna’s descriptions and depictions are vivid and novel. She draws pictures of spaces, appropriate to a novel about architects, and of people, using strong imagery in her words and phrases. She evokes a very real Auckland as a place, and as a society where class distinctions are a growing evil.
Gin as narrator is convincing as she unravels over her obsession with Clary, her mounting debts, and an all too likely manipulation of construction documents to mask an error which could result in a group of LIT’s buildings catastrophically failing. Buildings and humans, all prone to flaws and disaster.
I look forward to seeing what Anna will write next and whether she can follow this unusual novel with something else as skilled and immersive.

Review by Jane Shearer

Title: LIT
Author: Anna Woods
Publisher: Echo Publishing
ISBN: 9781786588265
RRP: $37.99
Available: bookshops

Salmon and lies in a dangerous country

7/8/2026

Chay – Dangerous Obsessions
by Alan Titchall

Chay – Chayton Duncan – wants to know how and why his father, Bob Smith, died in the central North Island bush 28 years ago. Was it really suicide – the official verdict – or something more sinister? He’s come to Auckland from his birthplace on Vancouver Island and he isn’t going home until he finds the answer.
Chay – Dangerous Obsessions is the sequel to Guardians*, which in turn is the sequel to While the Fantail Lives**, so if you have read Alan Titchall’s first books, you’re probably hoping that this latest volume will answer that question too. However, the more questions Chay asks about his father’s death, and the more people he encounters, the more the truth is disguised or side-stepped. And he isn’t always telling the truth either. His quest is enveloped in danger and deception. This had me wondering if not having read Guardians was a disadvantage as even two thirds of the way through, Chay hasn’t really made any progress and plenty of people want him to go back to Canada pretty quickly, before he finds out… what?
  A complete non-use of any speech punctuation is an added challenge with this read. Who’s talking and where does the talking end? Why do we learn to punctuate speech if a whole book can be written without a single “speech mark”?
      Page 1: What’s this parcel doing on my desk, he bellows from his open office door.
      Page 23: Nice to meet you, Chay Duncan. And that big brute, she says, pointing at the dog, is called Medved, which means bear.
  These quirks apart, kick back and enjoy the ride: and what a ride! High powered cars and SUVs whisk Chay around the country, staying in opulent surroundings and encountering people who possibly know the truth but aren’t going to share it with him. From Piha Beach to Turangi and on to the hydro village where his father grew up and died; to Whangamata and a car rally, to Russell and Waitangi, etc, the story romps along, interspersed with the conflicts in Northern Ireland and the Congo, and dipping into North American spiritualism, drugs, colonialism, how to make mayonnaise, gender diversity, and more. Everywhere he goes, his hosts serve salmon because Canadians all love salmon, don’t they?! Chay doesn’t like it so when his hosts find out, they serve it for spite!
  Spoiler ALERT: if you read the Prologue, pages 1 and 2, set in June 2026, four months after Chay’s February arrival in New Zealand, you’ll know how the story ends. Avoid its inevitability by skipping the Prologue and starting on page 3.

* Guardians — see review by FlaxFlower July 2024
** While the Fantail Lives — see review by FlaxFlower August 2020

Review by Carolyn McKenzie

Title: Chay – dangerous obsessions
Author: Alan Titchall
Publisher: Devonmedia Ltd
ISBN: 9780473780869
RRP: $34
Available: Paperback – reputable bookshops and Wheelers wholesale

Historical novel based on true story

1/8/2026

The Spirit Remains
by Donna Goodacre

Somewhere in our past we can find our history.  The times, the places and the people that have shaped us and our families.
This historical novel is based on the true story of the Author and has been dramatized with events both in the past and the present time.  It spans a search that covers both New Zealand and England and covers five generations.
  The Spirit Remains is the third of the series Our Unbroken Spirits.  The previous books are Finding Miriama followed by Of Greenstones and Violins.
The saga begins with the finding of two watercolour paintings that were hidden in the desecrated family crypt in London. After some research they are handed over to the rightful owner and their place then found in the continuation of the family history.
  Reading The Spirit Remains without the knowledge of the two previous books had its disadvantages for me until I found the whakapapa, family photos and the watercolours in the index and these I consulted frequently to maintain the story and time lines.
  Throughout the narrative there was the mystical feeling of Ngaroma’s pounamu that she wore around her neck, which gave her strength to carry on as she searched for the Greenwood side of her family.
   I loved this narrative with its glimpses into early British and New Zealand life, Maori culture and the shaping of whanau that continues to the present day.
The epilogue mentions the family, the memories and the feelings of belonging to the present generation and beyond and ends with...the story continues.......
Read and enjoy.

Review by Merilyn Mary

Title: The Spirit Remains
Author: Donna Goodacre
Publisher: Good Acre Books
ISBN: 978-0-473-78440-9
RRP: $38.00
Available: bookshops

What’s not to like?

24/7/2026

Parrot Heaven
by Jessica Howland Kany

Maudie’s back! Maudie. You know, the one who ran pushing a pram containing her possessions down the South Island, crossed over to Rakiura, and stayed.
Some years later she’s still there, having married and put the pram to more appropriate use, twice. So are many of the other Stewart Island residents – Vil, Dogbox and Clutha, Snatchblock, Strom, Pete, Sally – a whole island full of oddbods. Plus an evil goat called Bathmat, with Moji the parrot’s footprints stamped indelibly on the house on Penguin Lane.
It pleases me no end to think a community of such oddball characters live in this country – must take another trip to the far south!
The island hasn’t changed much. The running tracks aren’t as pounded this time, but there’s plenty of movement between museum, library, pub, and wharf as Maudie’s life revolves around parenting, wood-chopping, books, and solving the odd mystery or two. Throw in childhood bullying at pre-school level, silicon toe protheses, rats eating [censored], multiple munted cell-phones, cuneiform lettering and bird-tracks, notions of immigrants from space and a doughnut-shaped earth, with much discussion of The Epic of Gilgamesh. If all that and more is enough to send you racing to board the ferry to Rakiura, a warning – watch out for bollards and marlinspikes.
The author’s skill has incorporated into early pages of the text all necessary information from the previous book about Maudie and mates [A Runner’s Guide to Rakiura, see FlaxFlower review December 2022], so this one can stand alone – but it’s much better to do yourself a favour and read that first.
The prose is lively throughout, particularly when the dialogue between the locals is peppered with colloquialisms and crammed with references to various things and happenings, seemingly incidental when reading but which come together in time.
At one point, when reading, Maudie thinks “Boats, storms, dreams. Hot guys with axes. What’s not to like?” It could well describe Parrot Heaven.

Review by Bronwyn Elsmore

Title: Parrot Heaven
Author: Jessica Howland Kany
Publisher: Rakiura Books
ISBN: 9780473766061
RRP: $38
Available: bookshops

Rip-roaring, fast-moving novel

17/7/2026

Vice, Virtue and Villainy
by Bob Richmond

Debut author, Bob Richmond, has just had his first novel published, and what a corker. Vice, Virtue and Villainy by 78-year-old Richmond is a rip-roaring, fast-moving tale of gangs, drug-dealing, sex-trafficking and police corruption that doesn’t let the reader go until the climax of warring gangs and an exciting police shoot-out.
Police officer George Sumpson is in a murky police operation that sees him injured and out of the Force. Never one to let a good crime go unpunished, he is soon back in the fray, without gun or badge but with his beloved fiancée Josie and friend Gail by his side.
When Gail’s sister vanishes from a sleazy nightclub owned by gangster, Alf Robson, George is hellbent on finding her and along the way the truth about who actually shot him and ruined his career. And, of course, end the criminal activities of the gangs.
Richmond’s characters are likeable and real, his villains are stock characters whom we can easily hate (especially when body parts begin to show up) and his police a mixed bag of goodies and baddies. The story races along until, almost winded, we arrive at the denouement where everything is satisfactorily explained and sorted.
There are times when I was aware of Richmond’s ‘newness’ to the game of writing, especially the final chapter which I felt was unnecessary and merely there to stitch up and resolve the lives of the protagonists rather than further the story. Having said that, it is a brave, confident and well written debut and I look forward to Richmond’s second, and maybe third, book.

Review by JA Harrison

Title: Vice, Virtue and Villainy
Author: Bob Richmond
Publisher: McKenzie Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-473-78618-2
RRP: $37.99
Available: bookshops

Striking images in poetry collection

4/7/2026

Portrait,
by Jackson McCarthy

This is an interesting first poetry collection by a young Kiwi of Lebanese, Māori and Pākehā descent.
Interesting because it took me repeated readings of many poems as to glean their genesis and grasp the guts of what the poet is ‘saying’. It is as if – in several examples – there is a thin, semi-opaque veneer covering them and I had to wipe clear the veil of what he nominates as ‘My elliptical conversation’ (The Truth). For example, the prose poem titled The Window, while replete with striking imagery – a feature throughout this book, which I will return to – reads like a hallucinogenic hangover. It is as if McCarthy mounts a persona throughout, whereby he seems to be shielding and yet seeking his essential self, something he alludes to in Uniform, as here –
      ‘Behind us, watching, was Jackson McCarthy, noted homosexual. Eater of olives.
      Writer of poetry.’
  These toikupu stir me to select several features.
  There is a continuous stress on ‘me/my’ and ‘you/your’ in these pieces, and indeed the poet writes, ‘I made pacts with myself, my best subject’ in the first of the four poems titled Santa Monica. Which leads to my first pātai, why are there four distinct poems with the same title? Then again, why not, eh?
  The tenuousness of relationships, the poet’s seeming insecurity about the multifarious ‘you’ in these poems, is a repetitive strain, and several such culminate with lines such as, ‘you lean in to kiss me for the last time’ (Louis, August), and, ‘as you move to leave’ (Three Mysteries 2). Meanwhile, ‘lost’ and ‘loss’ reverberate amongst this at times found verse, as exemplified in the Notes.
  Which leads back to a point referenced previously, namely that the poet is striving to firm himself, here via these relationships, as for example, ‘Who was I before I met you’ (Night train). After all, the overall collection is titled Portrait.
  Relatedly, there is a yearning here, ‘I want so much to be consumed by something’ (Moonlight spell).
  Death and its son death, pervade these pages too. The very first line in the very first poem is, ‘Funerals happen’ (Prelude). McCarthy and his sometimes seeming surrogate, pen, ‘not a day passes, not an hour or even a minute I don’t think about dying’, in the poem ironically titled Happiness.
  Then there are the word echoes, whereby certain kupu recur, as indeed do some word pictures. Such as, dream/dreams; blond/blonde; swans in the back of his truck/fifty white swans asleep in the back [of] his country truck; ass/ass; naked/naked; hair/hair; yellow/yellow, and copious other mirrors. Such replication establishes a thread of connectivity between poems, between the stages and stratifications of the young poet’s life up until present day events and affairs.
  Returning to the striking images mentioned earlier, here are just some examples of this poet’s somewhat Personist lyrical predilection –
      ‘sleep’s black wealth’ (Mahuika as a boy)
      ‘where cars sleep heavy like bullets’ (Portrait)
      ‘cutting the dusk in skinny jeans’ (Halloween)
      ‘smalling me with distance’ (Arthur)
      ‘my mind an antonym for my body’ (Archery)
      ‘I was licking the moon like a streetlamp’ (Song)
These what I term ‘interlinked McCarthys’ can certainly craft fine verse.
  Interestingly again, in a couple of poems, namely The Lake and Song, the poet snaps the thin ice covering most of his other poems and writes about more manifest events, suicide in the former, the constant bombardment of Lebanon in the latter. It will be stimulating to see if his future mahi grounds itself further, as will his possibly employing some reo Māori – e pīrangi ana ahau ki te kite i tēnei.
  Now, I could and certainly will, write more about this collection. Suffice to say that I look forward to the follow-up, and to muse that McCarthy reminds me of Genet, a toned-down Sam Te Kani, and Burroughs all stewed together into a sapid repast replete with urban spices and nocturnal salts.
  I like McCarthy’s pensive mien, his is a divergent voice, and my tastebuds await the next course. I hope that its results are unike how he describes Maya’s gazpacho which, ‘turned out gray’ (in the poem Moon). Given Jackson McCarthy’s rather classical autodidact styling, I am sure they will not!

Review by Vaughan Rapatahana
(Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Te Whiti)

Title: Portrait
Author: Jackson McCarthy
Publisher: Auckland University Press
ISBN: 9781776712304
RRP: $24.99
Available: bookshops

Poetry collection effective and fun

21/6/2026

Perverse Verse
by Michael Gould

It’s a small book, 76 text pages, and you could read it through in a sitting. Do that to start with, if you wish, to get an idea of the collection as a whole. But then, take your time to go back through and appreciate each of the ‘verses’ individually. You’ll want to, perhaps more than once, and your time will be rewarded.
All of the poems are short – they’re pithy, meaningful, effective. The Author himself puts it as “humorous (often black) yet reflective”, of “appeal to baby boomers the hip general and literate reader and lovers of wordplay”. Sounds quite like me.
So, bearing in mind the opening verse addressed to “My Executioner” –

Please give me a moment to relax
before you aim the blade of your axe
at the back of my head and render me dead
and allow me to take a bow
for a life lived well in the here and now.
– here are my thoughts.
Together, the poems suggest a personal summing-up of the Author’s life, his accrued insights and wisdom, leading to growing acceptance of the eventual inescapable end that comes to us all.
They are tellingly arranged into three sections –
1:  Sometimes you feel serene / as if in a pleasant dream / other times you may feel chaotic / we call that being neurotic.
What is madness
but sadness turned inside out
and life, hell
what’s that all about?
2:  Everything I’ve done / was done in the past; today / I’m doing nothing.
I’m a yesterday man
who dwells in the past
and I’ve come to the conclusion
only nostalgia lasts.
3:  What a life I’ve led / though most of it in his head / they’ll say once I’m dead.
In this third part, the focus becomes less personal and more world-centred with environmentally-conscious reflections on the present state of the planet –
We’ll end up tourists in space
witnessing the extinction
of the human race.
A small collection but, along with moments of fun, it packs a punch with many lines inviting and inspiring reflection. It is well presented – the quality paper, clear print of a good font and size (unlike many poetry books) makes reading easy for baby boomers!
Michael Gould’s verses, perverse or otherwise, have appeared in numerous publications.

Review by Bronwyn Elsmore

Title: Perverse Verse
Author: Michael Gould
Publisher: Umbrella Books
ISBN: 978-0-473-75572-0
RRP: $30
Available: Unity Books, Scorpio Books and other quality bookstores