Overview

A gripping historical novel set amid the New Zealand Wars in 1860. As English settlers wage war upon local iwi in colonial Taranaki, two women confront their pasts to survive the present. Frances is an unmarried Londoner newly landed in New Zealand, 1860, at the dawn of the First Taranaki War. Once well-regarded, her family's fall from grace sees them struggling to learn the strange etiquette of settler life. When Frances comes face-to-face with Henry White, the man who jilted her a decade earlier, he's standing outside Thorpe's General Store with a sack of flour in his arms. Henry is married now - to the proud and hardy Mataria, who is shunned by her whanau due to this controversial marriage. As conflict between settlers and iwi rises, both women must find the courage to fight for what is right, even if it costs them everything they know. As their lives intersect in surprising and catastrophic ways, the question remains - will they ever belong, or do their fates lie in the uncomfortable space between? This gripping historical debut by Lauren Keenan (Te Āti Awa ki Taranaki) is a story of the transformative power of hope, the unbreakable bonds of whenua and family, and the discovery of love in the least likely of places.

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9781776950812

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Lauren Keenan (Te Āti Awa ki Taranaki) is a writer of creative non-fiction, novels, short stories and popular psychology. Lauren was a winner at the 2017 Pikihuia Awards for Maori writers and a finalist in the 2019 awards. She was also a participant in Te Papa Tupu mentoring programme. Her short stories have appeared in Huia Short Stories collections in 2015, 2017 and 2019. In 2020 her book The 52 Week Project- How I Fixed My Life by Trying a New Thing Every Week for a Year was published, and in 2022 her children's novel Amorangi and Millie's Trip Through Time was published. It was a finalist in the 2022 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and longlisted in the ARA Historical Novel Prize. It also won the 2023 Book Lovers Award. Lauren has a Master of Arts in Taranaki Maori History.

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