Sacrifice

Young adult novel

(HarperCollinsPublishers 2011)

Several generations after volcanic eruptions and tsunamis caused the onset of the Dark, Taka is one of the Travellers chosen to venture across the Pacific on a sacred voyage in search of new resources to sustain the tenuous communities surviving in the far north of New Zealand.

Riccarton and the Deans family

Non-fiction

(David Bateman Ltd 2015)

The story of the pioneer Deans family encapsulates the natural and social history of Canterbury, centred on the sole remnant of ancient floodplain kahikatea forest, preserved as Riccarton Bush and gifted to Christchurch city in 1914. This book re-examines the history of the family at Riccarton and updates the subsequent restoration of the bush and the two historic houses associated with the Deans family, including the major repairs to Riccarton House needed after the 2010-11 Canterbury earthquakes.

Kauri: Witness to a nation's history

Non-fiction

(New Holland Publishers NZ 2004, Edition 2, 2007, revised and updated edition 2019)

Kauri trees, timber and gum played an important role in the lives of northern Maori and later European settlers. An account of the cultural and natural history associated with kauri from the time of first settlement of New Zealand through to modern conservation efforts. The new edition adds chapters on kauri dieback disease and community restoration efforts, and updates teh natural history chapters.

Collision

Adult fiction

Collision

(HarperCollinsPublishers 2009)

Different cultural perspectives on Marion du Fresne’s fatal encounter with Bay of Islands Maori in 1772 are seen through the eyes of participant André Tallec, a young French ensign, and his counterpart Te Kape, favoured protégé of prominent chief Te Kuri.

Kauri in my blood

Children's fiction

(Scholastic 2007)

Based on a true story, Laura Ann’s fictional diary tells of her adventurous life as a bush cook’s offsider in the 1920s logging camps located in the kauri forests of the Kauaranga Valley, Coromandel.

Out of tune

Young adult fiction

(Longacre Press 2004)

Great-grandmother Gi-Gi shares entries from her Shetland ancestor’s diary written on 1870s Stewart Island to help teenager Jaz deal with the parallel problems she faces in a modern world.

Owl

Young adult fiction

(Longacre Press 2001)

Set on a high county farm in limestone country, where Hamish (Owl) and Tama have unwittingly set free the force of Pouakai, the man-eating eagle of Maori myth. They must defeat Pouakai to save themselves, Owl’s family and the local farmers from the eagle’s depredations.

Watcher in the forest

Children - young adult fiction

(Oxford University Press 1987)

Jen and her two siblings encounter a mysterious Maori figure in the bush on their first tramp without their parents. Under his influence, Jen’s visions draw them further and further into his world to assist in the recovery of a piece of greenstone.

The guardian of the land

Children's fiction

(Oxford University Press 1985, Ashton Scholastic paperback edition 1990, HarperCollins Publishers Collins Modern New Zealand Classics 2005)

David is sent to Kaikoura to recover from a long illness. His growing friendship with local boy Rua involves him in a series of adventures back through time to find the long lost pendant known to local Maori as the guardian of the land.

Ihaka and the prophecy

Children's fiction

(Oxford University Press 1984)

Apprenticed to Paoa, tohunga in wood and stone crafts, for the building of a double-hulled canoe, Ihaka grows to manhood.

Ihaka and the summer wandering

(Oxford University Press 1982)

Set in the earliest period of New Zealand Polynesian history in the vicinity of Delaware Bay, Nelson, this story follows Ihaka and his friend Pahiko during the summer bird hunting season.

Four generations from Maoridom

Adult non-fiction

(Otago University Press 1997)

A descendant of an influential Moeraki Maori woman and a European whaler, fisherman Syd Cormack developed a lifelong interest in southern Maori history and the associated issues of land and genealogy. His memoirs and accounts of Maori history were recorded on tape at his home in Tuatapere when he was eighty-five.

Shifting Currents

Adult historical fiction

[Publisher Joanna Orwin July 2020. Available Nationwide Books]

It is 1853. Previously widowed Lydia Boulcott has remarried, hoping to escape her shameful past. The isolation of a new life in the kauri forests of New Zealand’s far north offers the chance of a respectable future for her and Hannah, her five-year-old daughter. To her dismay, Lydia finds that one of her few neighbours is none other than ambitious Eliza Noakes —someone from her past capable of ferreting out her guilt-ridden secret. Despite Lydia’s determined efforts to avoid Eliza, fate constantly throws them together …

Inspired by the intertwined lives of two real women, award-winner Joanna Orwin’s new novel is set against a vivid background of hardscrabble pioneer life at a time when New Zealand’s cultural and natural landscapes were rapidly changing.