Coming this Friday June 9th to Newtown Library in conjunction with the Ngaio Marsh awards, we have a very special event for all lovers of crime fiction.
The panel for this event features some of Aotearoa’s finest crime and thriller writers. In the lead up to this unmissable event, we thought we would place a spotlight on just a few of the fabulous writers who will be in attendance.
Award -winning Wellington author Kirsten McDougall’s books include the critically acclaimed Tess, “a wonderful, multi-layered can of worms” and The Invisible Rider, as well as short stories and non-fiction in a range of books and journals. She’s a Killer has been heaped with praise since its release from the likes of The Listener, The Post and Radio New Zealand and is already one of this most talked about and highly regarded novels of recent years.
She’s a Killer, her most recent novel, is set in the very near future in New Zealand where the effects of climate change are really beginning to bite and affect both our physical world and our society. The main theme of the book might be heavy, but the book is often very funny in a dark way. It contains layers of twists and turns and is a fast-paced thriller with great characters to boot.
Kirsten will be joined by the 2021 Ngaios winner Brannavan Gnanalingam and fellow Wellington novelists Anne Harre and Rodney Strong to discuss how they craft page-turning stories about captivating characters. Join us for an exciting evening of criminally good conversation featuring four local authors.
Below is a selection Kirsten’s work available to borrow from the Library:
She’s a killer. / McDougall, Kirsten
“Set in a very near future New Zealand where the effects of climate change are really beginning to bite and affect both our physical world but also our society.Full of spicy and fresh characters that leap of the book’s pages and a plot effortlessly moves from razor sharp humour to Climate fear driven sure shot action. ” ( Adapted from Catalogue)
Tess / McDougall, Kirsten
“Tess is on the run when she’s picked up from the side of the road by lonely middle-aged father Lewis Rose. With reluctance, she’s drawn into his family troubles and comes to know a life she never had. Set in Masterton at the turn of the millennium, Tess is a gothic love story about the ties that bind and tear a family apart.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
The invisible rider / McDougall, Kirsten
“This delightful collection of linked short stories focuses on Philip Fetch, a lawyer with an office in a suburban shopping mall who feels increasingly out of step with his society and neighbours. At once surreal and whimsical, and fired by a quietly burning moral engagement, The Invisible Rider is an antipodean cousin of Calvino’s Marcovaldo” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Coming this Friday June 9th to Newtown Library in conjunction with the Ngaio Marsh awards, we have a very special event for all lovers of crime and thriller fiction.
The panel for this event features some of Aotearoa’s finest crime and thriller writers. So, in the lead up to this unmissable event, we thought we would place a spotlight on just a few of the fabulous writers who will be in attendance.
Brannavan Gnanalingam is one of the most accomplished authors working in Aotearoa today. A Wellington lawyer as well as a writer, his past three novels have all been listed for Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. His novel, Sprigs, won the 2021 Ngaio Marsh award and was described by Kim Hill as “scarily contemporary and realistic story…an extraordinary piece of writing”.
Brannavan’s most recent book, Slow Down, You’re Here, gathered glowing reviews. In brief, the novel revolves around the arrival of an old flame into a dead-end marriage. Filled with unexpected twists and turns which propel the plot forwards, this book is a fast paced, page turning domestic thriller. It’s funny, smart and touching with truly relatable characters. As well as this, the novel is also an exploration of serious moral questions, including issues racism and class. In short, it is a fantastic and engaging read.
Brannavan Gnanalingam will be joined by two-time Ngaios finalist Kirsten McDougall and fellow Wellington novelists Anne Harre and Rodney Strong to discuss how they craft page-turning stories about captivating characters. Join us for an exciting evening of criminally good conversation featuring four fabulous local authors.
Below is a selection of Brannavan’s work available to borrow from the library:
Slow down you’re here. / Gnanalingam, Brannavan “Kavita is stuck in a dead-end marriage. A parent of two small kids, she is the family’s main breadwinner. An old flame unexpectedly offers her a week away in Waiheke. If she were to go, she’s not sure when – or if – she’d come back.”
( Adapted from catalogue)
You should have come here when you were not here / Gnanalingam, Brannavan
“The intriguing title of this novel by Wellington writer Brannavan Gnanalingam derives from a statement made by Parisians to their Nazi occupiers in World War II when the Germans expressed being underwhelmed by the attractions of the French capital. This postmodern travelogue tells the lonely tale of Veronica, a thirty-something asexual female journalist from New Zealand who travels to Paris late as a freelance journalist only to find the city indifferent to and from her.” ( Adapted from Catalogue)
Sprigs / Gnanalingam, Brannavan
“It is Saturday afternoon and two boys’ schools are locked in battle for college rugby supremacy. Priya – a fifteen year old who barely belongs – watches from the sidelines. Then it is Saturday night and the team is partying. Priya’s friends have evaporated and she isn’t sure what to do. In the weeks after ‘the incident’ life seems to go on. But when whispers turn to confrontation, the institutions of wealth and privilege circle the wagons.” ( Adapted from Catalogue )
Sodden downstream / Gnanalingam, Brannavan
“Thousands flee central Wellington as a far too common ‘once in a century’ storm descends. For their own safety, city workers are told that they must go home early. Sita is a Tamil Sri Lankan refugee living in the Hutt Valley. She’s just had a call from her boss – if she doesn’t get to her cleaning job in the city she’ll lose her contract.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Credit in the straight world / Gnanalingam, Brannavan
“‘Credit in the straight world’ charts the fortunes of Frank Tolland as he casts off an ignoble birth to become the singular leader of business and community in small-town New Zealand. Told through the eyes of his mute brother, George, this novel is a sharp and satirical account of a small-town finance company, and sweeps through the dramatic economic changes of the 20th and the 21st centuries.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
A briefcase, two pies and a penthouse : a novel / Gnanalingam, Brannavan
“Rachel McManus has just started at the New Zealand Alarm and Response Ministry. One of the few females working there, she is forced to traverse the peculiarities of Wellington bureaucracy, lascivious colleages, and decades of sedimented hierarchy. She has the chance to prove herself by investigating a suspected terrorist, who they fear is radicalising impressionable youth and may carry out an attack on the nation’s capital.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Getting under sail / Gnanalingam, Brannavan
“Morocco to Ghana. Overland. Three New Zealanders. Armed with a guide book and stereotypes. They go being warned of danger, poverty and war by people who had never been there. They end up embroiled in a civil war – but it wasn’t really anything to do with Africa.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Recently at Karori Library, we had the rare opportunity to celebrate the 21st anniversary of the Wellington Writers Walk the iconic waterfront walk. This very special event featured two of New Zealand’s most celebrated authors, Elizabeth Knox and Dame Fiona Kidman, who were interviewed by author, broadcaster and Writers Walk committee member Tanya Ashcroft. During this wide-ranging conversation, Elizabeth Knox and Dame Fiona Kidman talked about the creation and future of this wonderful Wellington institution, as well as the part they’ve played in making the walk the much-loved success it is.
The event has now passed into history, but with the participants and Writer’s Walk committee permission we were able to film the proceedings and are now proud to present a video of the evening.
For anyone unfamiliar, this walk along Wellington’s beautiful waterfront pedestrian precinct is considered by many as “one of the world’s loveliest urban land-and-seascapes”. It consists of sculptural quotations situated in picturesque locations from the writings of a selection of iconic New Zealand authors – both past and contemporary. The walk celebrates and commemorates the place of Wellington in these writers’ lives, and their place in the life of Wellington.
Writers on the walk include: Katherine Mansfield, Robin Hyde, Pat Lawlor, Denis Glover, James K. Baxter, Bruce Mason, Lauris Edmond, Maurice Gee, Patricia Grace, Vincent O’Sullivan, Barbara Anderson, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Eileen Duggan, Bill Manhire and our very special guests Dame Fiona Kidman and Elizabeth Knox.
We wish to extend our most heartfelt thanks to Elizabeth Knox, Dame Fiona Kidman and Tanya Ashcroft. We’d also like to thank Karori Library and its staff and The Wellington Writers walk committee for making this very special event happen.
You can now view the video below or visit our You Tube channel.
The Wellington Writers Walk is a project of the Wellington Branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors Te Puni Kaituhi o Aotearoa (PEN NZ) Inc.
Below is a very small selection of Elizabeth Knox and Fiona Kidman titles available to borrow.
So far, for now : on journeys, widowhood and stories that are never over / Kidman, Fiona
“Evocative, wry and thought-provoking, this is a rewarding journey with one of our finest writers. It is a little over a decade since Fiona Kidman wrote her last volume of memoir. But her story did not end on its last page; instead her life since has been busier than ever, filled with significant changes, new writing and fascinating journeys. From being a grandmother to becoming a widow, from the suitcase-existence of book festivals to researching the lives and deaths of Jean Batten and Albert Black, she has found herself in new territory and viewed the familiar with fresh eyes. ” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available as an eBook.
The absolute book / Knox, Elizabeth
“Taryn Cornick believes that the past is behind her – her sister’s death by violence, and her own ill-conceived revenge. She has chosen to live a life more professional than personal. She has written a book about the things that threaten libraries – insects, damp, light, fire, carelessness and uncaring. The book is a success, but not all of the attention it brings her is good. There are questions about a fire in the library at Princes Gate, her grandparents’ house, and about an ancient scroll box known as the Firestarter. A policeman, Jacob Berger, has questions about a cold case. There are threatening phone calls. And a shadowy young man named Shift appears, bringing his shadows with him. Taryn, Jacob, Shift – three people are driven towards a reckoning felt in more than one world.” (Adapted from Catalogue) This mortal boy / Kidman, Fiona
“Albert Black, known as the ‘jukebox killer’, was only twenty when he was convicted of murdering another young man in a fight at a milk bar in Auckland on 26 July 1955. His crime fuelled growing moral panic about teenagers, and he was to hang less than five months later, the second-to-last person to be executed in New Zealand. But what really happened? Was this a love crime, was it a sign of juvenile delinquency? Or was this dark episode in our recent history more about our society’s reaction to outsiders.” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available as an eBook Dreamhunter / Knox, Elizabeth
“Fast-paced and dazzlingly imaginative, Dreamhunter will draw the reader into an extraordinary fictional world in which dreams are as vividly described as the cream cakes in the tea shop, the sand on the beach or teenage first love.Set in 1906, Dreamhunter describes a world very similar to ours, except for a special place, known simply as The Place, where only a select group of people can go. These people are called Dreamhunters and they harvest dreams which are then transmitted to the general public for the purposes of entertainment, therapy – or terror and political coercion.Fifteen-year-old cousins Laura Hame and Rose Tiebold both come from famous dreamhunting families, but only Laura proves to be blessed with the gift and once inside The Place she finds out what happened to her missing dreamhunter father and reveals how the government has used dreams to control an ever-growing population of convicts and political dissenters.” (Adapted from Catalogue) All the way to summer : stories of love and longing / Kidman, Fiona
“Fiona Kidman’s early stories about New Zealand women’s experiences scandalised readers with their vivid depictions of the heartbreaks and joys of desire, illicit liaisons and unconventional love. Her writing made her a feminist icon in the early 1980s, and she has since continued to tell the realities of women’s lives, her books resonating with many readers over the years and across the world. To mark her 80th birthday, this volume brings together a variety of her previously published stories as well as several that are new or previously uncollected; all moving, insightful and written with love. The final stories trace her own history of love, a memoir of significant people from childhood and beyond.” (Adapted from Catalogue) The angel’s cut / Knox, Elizabeth
” Boomtown Los Angeles, 1929: Into a world of movie lots and speakeasies comes Xas, stunt flier and wingless angel, still nursing his broken heart, and determined only to go on living in the air. But there are forces that will keep him on the ground. Forces like Conrad Cole, movie director and aircraft designer, a glory-seeking king of the grand splash who is also a man sinking into his own sovereign darkness. And Flora McLeod, film editor and maimed former actress, who sees something in Xas that no one has ever seen before, not even God, who made him, or Lucifer, the general he once followed – Lucifer, who has lost Xas once, but won’t let that be the end of it. ” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available as an eBook. The infinite air / Kidman, Fiona
“Jean Batten became an international icon in the 1930s. A brave, beautiful woman, she made a number of heroic solo flights across the world. The newspapers couldn’t get enough of her; and yet she suddenly slipped out of view, disappearing to the Caribbean with her mother and dying in obscurity in Majorca, buried in a pauper’s grave.” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available as an eBook.
The vintner’s luck / Knox, Elizabeth
“One summer night in 1808, Sobran Jodeau sets out to drown his love sorrows in his family’s vineyard when he stumbles on an angel. Once he gets over his shock, Sobran decides that Xas, the male angel, is his guardian sent to counsel him on everything from marriage to wine production. But Xas turns out to be a far more mysterious character. Compelling and erotic, The Vintner’s Luck explores a decidedly unorthodox love story as Sobran eventually comes to love and be loved by both Xas and the young Countess de Valday, his friend and employer at the neighboring chateau.” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available as an Audiobook.
To celebrate the 21st anniversary of the fabulous Wellington Writers Walk, we’ve taken a closer look at just a few of the authors represented. In this blog we take a look at Bill Manhire’s typographical sculpture, which features a quote taken from ‘Milky Way Bar’ in Milky Way Bar, Victoria University Press, 1991
I live at the edge of the universe, like everybody else.
In the video below, local authors and Wellington Writers Walk Committee members Philippa Werry and Maggie Rainey-Smith explore Manhire’s work, to be found overlooking the water by the bridge, near the Hikitia floating crane. They provide a fascinating insight into Bill Manhire’s work life and creative process, and also celebrate his continuing achievements, body of work and connections to Wellington.
Milky Way bar / Manhire, Bill
“Collection of award winning Bill Manhire poetry first released in 1992. Which includes his Wellington Writers Walk poem ” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Selected poems / Manhire, Bill
“This generous selection of Bill Manhire’s poems moves from playful early pieces like “On Originality” and “How to Take off Your Clothes at the Picnic” to major works of recent years such as “Hotel Emergencies”–a powerful response to contemporary atrocities–and “Erebus Voices”–written to be read by Sir Edmund Hillary at the 25th anniversary of the Mt. Erebus tragedy. The poems featured in this definitive collection of New Zealand’s most important poet are deceptively simple, often funny, and always revelatory of his own and his country’s history.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
South Pacific / Manhire, Bill
“”In this lively, humorous and original book, the romance of the Pacific confronts the truth about that paradise. The stories include a do-it-yourself murder mystery an assassination attempt on the Queen, the hilarious account of a Writers’ Congress in Kuala Lumpur, and an unsettling, futuristic tale from 1999.” “Set in New Zealand and its environs, several of the pieces were first collected in The New Land, which won the 1990 Buckland Award for the best work of literature published in New Zealand. In South Pacific Bill Manhire has added view tales and other work. A vein of satire runs through his stories. Yet rooted as many of them are in a particular place and time, the laughter they generate is anything but local.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
The victims of lightning / Manhire, Bill
“Building on previous themes and introducing some new techniques, this collection reveals a respected poet at the height of his powers. Here are finely crafted lyrics, found poems, a bracket of songs, and complex emotions–all tempered by the use of humor.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Wow / Manhire, Bill
“Excuse me if I laugh. The roads are dark and large books block our path. The air we breathe is made of evening air. The world is longer than the road that brings us here. Bill Manhire’s new book begins with the song of an extinct bird, the huia, and journeys on into troubling futures. These poems reach for the possibilities of lyric, even as their worlds are being threatened in a range of agitating ways. In the title poem we hear a baby say Wow to life and to the astonishing prospect of language; but almost immediately we hear the world reply: Also. Along the way there are several desperate jokes. ” (Adapted from Catalogue)
The stories of Bill Manhire / Manhire, Bill
“Collects the stories from The New Land : A Picture Book (1990) and the stories added to South Pacific (1994) and Songs of My Life (1996). In addition there are previously uncollected and unpublished stories, the choose-your-own-adventure novella The Brain of Katherine Mansfield (1988), and the memoir Under the Influence (2003).” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Lifted / Manhire, Bill
“An award-winning collection exploring the plight of the secular spirit in the face of mortality and human violence, this work demonstrates a poet writing at the height of his powers.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Some things to place in a coffin / Manhire, Bill
“Bill Manhire’s first new collection of poems for seven years takes its title from his elegy for his close friend the painter Ralph Hotere, who died in 2013. At its heart is the sequence ‘Known Unto God’, commissioned by the BBC for the centenary of the Battle of the Somme in 2016. These are poems of memory and mortality, which are also full of jokes and good tunes.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
To celebrate the 21st anniversary of the fabulous Wellington Writers Walk, we’ve taken a closer look at just a few of the authors represented. In this blog we take a look at Iris Guiver Wilkinson’s, aka Robin Hyde’s, typographical sculpture, which features a quote taken from ‘Words’ in Young Knowledge: The Poems of Robin Hyde, ed. Michele Leggott, Auckland University Press, 2003
Yet I think, having used my words as the kings used gold,
Ere we came by the rustling jest of the paper kings,
I who am overbold will be steadily bold,
In the counted tale of things.
In the video below, local authors and Wellington Writers Walk Committee members Philippa Werry and Maggie Rainey-Smith explain Hyde’s work, to be found on a shaded bench overlooking the bay at the back of Te Papa Tongarewa / Museum of New Zealand. They provide a fascinating insight into Robin Hyde’s short, complex and eventful life, and also celebrate her astounding body of work and connections to Wellington.
Young knowledge : the poems of Robin Hyde / Hyde, Robin
“Familiar to many for her fiction and her life story, after publication of “The Book of Iris”, “The Book of Nadath” and the reissue of “The Godwits Fly” in recent years, prolific writer Robin Hyde’s first and best love was actually her poetry. “Young Knowledge: the Poems of Robin Hyde” presents for the very first time a substantial collection of Hyde’s powems, set as a choronological record.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
The book of Iris : a life of Robin Hyde / Challis, D. A.
“It is a gripping and profoundly moving story about a “short, tumultuous, incredibly productive, sad and doomed life. It suggests comparison with both Mansfield and Frame . . .”. A dramatic and densely packed story, including appalling accounts of hidden pregnancies, life as a solo mother, drug dependency, intimate acquaintance with sexism and poverty, mental breakdown, and an extraordinary trip in China during the Sino-Japanese war.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
The godwits fly / Hyde, Robin
“”By the time Robin Hyde wrote The Godwits Fly she was an experienced and prolific poet, journalist and novelist with an emerging international reputation. She could write with precision and edge. She was alert to different ways of seeing and voicing experience, intense and independent-minded. She stood for the underdog and for the cause of humanity. Her own brief life – thirty-three years, 1906-39 – was a roller-coaster of successes and deep despair. But she held her own line passionately against all odds, and she took the consequences of living hard – recklessly at times – with bravery and spirit.” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available as an eBook.
Nor the years condemn / Hyde, Robin
“‘They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.'” “The line from the Anzac verse provides the title for this novel, in which Robin Hyde shows the predicament of returned servicemen and women after the First World War. Through the story of Douglas Stark, we see the many ways in which New Zealand was failing their expectations. It was not the ‘land fit for heroes’ they had fought for, but a changing society moving through the tough times of the twenties and thirties.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
The book of Nadath / Hyde, Robin
“The Book of Nadath is a long prose poem by well-known poet and novelist Robin Hyde which has remained unpublished for 60 years. Written in 1937, Hyde’s last year in New Zealand, it is a sounding device for all the concerns which mark The Godwits Fly, A Home in this World and Nor the Years Condemn. It is arguably the crowning achievement of her poetry. It expresses dilemmas of identity, race and gender still current at the end of the century; but the moment of 1937 is its primary focus, the problem of how to articulate crisis – which writing voice best serves political and spiritual truth – is its enduring fascination.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Iris and Me / Werry, Philippa
“Philippa Werry’s latest novel Iris and Me looks at Robin Hyde’s entire life touching on her both her childhood and final days , but the book is primarily focussed on her time in China and her journey there. Including her time as a War correspondent during the Sino-Japanese War.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
The uppish hen & other poems / Hyde, Robin
“A previously unpublished collection by Robin Hyde, one of NZ’s finest authors/ journalists, written for her son, Derek Challis. Richly illustrated by Glenorchy artist Dïne.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
At night, here in the library, the ghosts have voices.
Welcome to another of our monthly round ups of our recently acquired science fiction and fantasy titles. It’s another month of rich variety, well demonstrated by the most recent title that caught our particular attention — a new horror anthology called Ghosts from the library : lost tales of terror and the supernatural.
Haunted libraries are a bit of thing, so we have taken this golden opportunity to look at some supposedly real-life haunted libraries!
First up is St. John’s College Library in Cambridge in the UK — this ancient library dates back to 1624. St John’s is said to be haunted by the headless ghost of Archbishop William Laud who supposedly terrifies readers by kicking his ghostly head along the floor — he was beheaded in 1645. It has been a very long time since anyone has reported seeing him doing this, though the sounds of unaccompanied footsteps have been reported in more recent times. As the Deputy Librarian said of the hauntings “we do know that Laud cared passionately about his library, and we like to think he has a friendly presence here.”
Felbrigg Hall library in Norfolk is haunted by its former owner who is said to return periodically to finish off reading books he didn’t have a chance to read when he was alive (we know that feeling well!). People report seeing his ghost seated at a library table or in a reading chair, and there is even one report that he can be summoned when a certain selection of his favourite books are put out.
One of the most haunted libraries in the world is Senate House Library in London, which holds The famous Harry Price Collection of Magical Literature. This huge collection was amassed by paranormalist Harry Price 1881-1948 and focusses on work about witchcraft, occult, magic and the paranormal, as well as prophecies and spiritual phenomena. Many of the books in the collection are ultra-rare. Reported ghostly activity includes whispering when no one is around, floating books, loud laughter and even a mysterious spectral ‘Blue Lady.’
The State Library of Victoria in Melbourne dates back to 1854 and is said to be haunted by numerous ghosts, including a former librarian called Grace — said to be a benevolent elderly spirit. The library’s music room is also supposedly haunted by a snazzily dressed moustachioed ghost. In fact, there have been so many reports of hauntings in The State Library that several clairvoyants have been brought in to investigate.
Here in New Zealand, we can also lay claim to a library ghost — The Parliament Library built in 1883 and continued in 1899 is rumoured to be haunted, amongst others, by the ghost of former Dunedin MP William Larnach. William Larnach tried his hand at gold-digging, farming and then worked as a banker before eventually entering Parliament as an MP in 1875. Records of the time report that he was known in parliament for his practical jokes as well as his ‘robustious egotism’ and ‘rough and blundering modes of speech’. Sadly he took his own life after financial and relationship troubles, however his ghost is alleged to cause disturbances in the library to this day.
Ghosts from the library : lost tales of terror and the supernatural
“It is said that books are written to bring sunshine into our dull, grey lives – to show us places we want to escape to, lives we want to live, people we want to love. But there are also stories that can only be found in the deepest, darkest corners of the library. Stories about the unexplained, of lost souls, of things that go bump before the silence. Before the screaming. And some stories just disappear. Stories printed in old newspapers, broadcast live on the wireless, sometimes not even published at all – these are the stories you cannot find on even the dustiest of library shelves. Ghosts from the Library resurrects forgotten tales of the supernatural by some of the most acclaimed mystery authors of all time.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
The curator : a novel / King, Owen
“Dora, a former domestic servant at the university has a secret desire — to find where her brother went after he died, believing that the answer lies within The Museum of Psykical Research, where he worked when Dora was a child. With the city amidst a revolutionary upheaval, where citizens like Robert Barnes, her lover and a student radical, are now in positions of authority, Dora contrives to gain the curatorship of the half-forgotten museum only to find it all but burnt to the ground, with the neighboring museums oddly untouched. Robert offers her one of these, The National Museum of the Worker. However, neither this museum, nor the street it is hidden away on, nor Dora herself, are what they at first appear to be.” (Adapted from Catalogue)
The fairy bargains of Prospect Hill / Miller, Rowenna
“On Prospect Hill, you can get nearly anything you want from the Fae — if you know how to ask and if you can pay the price. Generations ago, the first farmers on Prospect Hill learned to bargain small trades to make their lives a little easier — Alaine Fairborn’s family, however, was always superstitious, and she still hums the rhymes to find her lost shoe and ensure dry weather on her sister Delphine’s wedding day. But when Delphine confides her new husband is not the man she thought he was, Alaine will stop at nothing to help her sister escape his abuse… ” (Adapted from Catalogue)
The lies of the Ajungo / Utomi, Moses Ose
“The Lies of the Ajungo, follows one boy’s epic quest to bring water back to his city and save his mother’s life. They say there is no water in the City of Lies. They say there are no heroes in the City of Lies. They say there are no friends beyond the City of Lies. But would you believe what they say in the City of Lies? In the City of Lies, they cut out your tongue when you turn thirteen, to appease the terrifying Ajungo Empire and make sure it continues sending water. Tutu will be thirteen in three days, but his parched mother won’t last that long. So Tutu goes to his oba and makes a deal: she provides water for his mother, and in exchange he will travel out into the desert and bring back water for the city…” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Flux : a novel / Chong, Jinwoo
“A blazingly original and stylish debut novel about a young man whose reality unravels when he suspects his mysterious new employers have inadvertently discovered time travel — and are using it to cover up a string of violent crimes…” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available, Flux eBook
Assassin of reality : a novel / Di︠a︡chenko, Marina
“In Vita Nostra, Sasha Samokhina, a third-year student at the Institute of Special Technologies, was in the middle of taking the final exam that would transform her into a part of the Great Speech. After defying her teachers’ expectations, Sasha emerges from the exam as Password, a unique and powerful part of speech. Accomplished and ready to embrace her new role, she soon learns her powers threaten the old world, and despite her hard work, Sasha is set to fail. However, dark mentor, finds a way to bring her out of the oblivion and back to the Institute for his own selfish purposes…” (Adapted from Catalogue)
The ten percent thief / Lakshminarayan, Lavanya
“A bold, bitingly satirical near-future mosaic novel about a city run along ‘meritocratic’ lines, the injustice it creates, and the revolution that will destroy it” (Adapted from Catalogue)
Feed them silence / Mandelo, Lee
“What does it mean to “be-in-kind” with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon’s case, to be in-kind with one of the last remaining wild wolves? Using a neurological interface to translate her animal subject’s perception through her own mind, Sean intends to chase both her scientific curiosity and her secret, lifelong desire to experience the intimacy and freedom of wolfishness. To see the world through animal eyes; smell the forest, thick with olfactory messages; even taste the blood and viscera of a fresh kill. And, above all, to feel the belonging of the pack. Her research methods threaten her mind and body. And the attention of her VC funders could destroy her subject, the beautiful wild wolf whose mental world she’s invading.” (Adapted from Catalogue) Also available, Feed them Silence eBook
novelists Anne Harre and Rodney Strong to discuss how they craft page-turning stories about captivating characters. Join us for an exciting evening of criminally good conversation featuring four local authors.
She’s a killer. / McDougall, Kirsten
