Author: Michael Bennett Reviewer: Greg Fleming

Two murders. Two decades apart. One chance to get justice. Hana Westerman has left Auckland and her career as a detective behind her. Settled in a quiet coastal town, all she wants is a fresh start…

April 2024 release

Author: Louise Wallace Reviewer: Anna Scaife

‘Ash is a bruising portrait of what boils in the belly of a woman who is “coping”, revealed with humour and a rare candour.’

April 2024 release

Author: Saraid de Silva Reviewer: Himali McInnes

‘Intergenerational, diasporic story-telling that is polished and compelling. I consumed it greedily within a few days, much like the young queer character Annie consumes her grandmother’s delicious Sri Lankan cooking.’

March 2024 release

Author: Deborah Challinor Reviewer: David Hill

‘Good historical fiction shouldn't be just contemporary plots with crinolines…’ David Hill weighs in on how Deborah Challinor's latest novel strikes the right balance between the familiarity of the now and the foreign land of the past. 

March 2024 release

Author: Danielle Hawkins Reviewer: Nadene Hall

“Take Two is light and sweet, but never cloying or sickly. Like getting the tea from your school bestie after you've been out of touch for a few years, accompanied by a slice of your favourite cake.”

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: 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: 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: 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: 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

To say Jade Kake is busy is a bit of an understatement. With not one, but two books published in 2023 (while also working in her day job as director and architectural and urban designer at architectural firm Matakohe and as a senior lecturer at AUT) she was in need of a summer holiday — big time.

Te Awhi Rito Reading Ambassadors Alan Dingley (current) and Ben Brown (former) on books, reading and why rangatahi do – or do not – find it enjoyable…

In 2023 a cohort of excellent, world-class authors from Aotearoa penned novels for young adults. Here is Kete’s pick of the year based on our reviewers’ insights.

2023 has been an astonishingly good year for Aotearoa fiction. From bestsellers to best pandemic novels, best holiday reading, to the best suspense (and more), here are the fiction books that made the biggest impression.

Author: Olivia Spooner

Line up your summer reading plans! Read an extract from Olivia Spooner’s captivating (and bestselling) debut. London, 1940. Ruth, a young schoolteacher, volunteers to escort children evacuating war-torn England to Australia and New Zealand…

November 2023 release

Author: Jade Kake. Reviewer: Vaughan Rapatahana

‘An impressive debut … Kake paints her novel as much as pens it: there are colours and textures portrayed throughout, while shades of light, passages of penumbra also pervade the pages.’

October 2023 release

Author: Paul Cleave. Reviewer: Greg Fleming.

‘His Favourite Graves deserves to win Paul Cleave many more fans; it’s another twisty, gory and disturbing outing (one of the characters suffers from a psychological condition which makes him think he is infested with parasites) and a reminder that Cleave was initially drawn to the horror genre but changed his mind after reading FBI profiler John Douglas’s Mindhunter.’

November 2023 release

Author: Lee Murray. Reviewer: Angelique Kasmara.

‘In less capable hands, adding Lovecraftian-type monsters to the grim horror of war might have turned the story into an unpalatable mess but Lee Murray plays these disparate elements beautifully against each other. The visceral and heart-wrenching elements of both serve to lift the narrative into the realms of a classical epic tale, echoing Herman Melville’s Moby Dick in its imagery, from which emerges a powerful work which left this reader devastated.’

October 2023 release