A son worries he is becoming too perfect a copy of his father. The co-owner of a weight-loss camp for teens finds himself running the black market in chocolate bars. A man starts melting and nothing can stop it, not even poetry.  This terrific collection of stories by an exciting new talent moves from the serious and realistic to the humorous and outlandish, each story copying an element from the previous piece in a kind of evolutionary chain. Amid pigeons with a taste for cigarette ash, a rash of moa sightings, and the identity crisis of an imaginary friend, the characters in these eighteen entertaining stories look for ways to reconnect with people and the world around them, even if that means befriending a robber wielding an iguana.

How do I describe him?Bubbly, mischievous.Surly, uncooperative.Happy-go-lucky, straightforward.Devious, calculating?Professor Chesney - Ches for short - recalls a court case in which he was an expert witness. At its centre is Huey Dunstan, a young man accused of murdering a taxi driver in cold blood. Ches, called in to try to determine the motivation behind this uncharacteristic act of violence, is at first baffled by an ordinary, unassuming, polite young man who seems determined at all costs to incriminate himself. The crux of the case involves the twin enigmas of buried memory and provocation, both contentious elements that require risk-taking at the edge of New Zealand law. But Ches is no foreigner to dilemmas of this kind: he is a trained psychologist, specialising in trauma, and he is blind. This is a compelling, beautifully written novel. It is both emotionally engaging and thought-provoking - an important insight into the workings of the law . . . and of humanity.'A tale told with such beguiling modesty that its toughness, maturity and emotional power will take you by surprise.' Helen Garner

'It was this contemplation of the future that made Roza frightened, and that caused her to turn her mind, as she did now, harried and nervous, to the past. And then there was the question of Simon Lampton.'Roza Hallwright leads a quiet, orderly life, working at her publishing job each day, returning home to the large, comfortable house she shares with her politician husband David and her two stepchildren. But this peaceful existence is about to be changed forever. In the next few months there will be an election, and, if the polls are correct, Roza will become the Prime Minister's wife. She has faced the prospect with relative calm, but a chance encounter with party donor Simon Lampton sparks a chain of consequences that will bring turmoil to both their lives.Award-winning writer Charlotte Grimshaw has turned her unflinching eye on contemporary New Zealand society in this intricate and elegant novel. Sharp, moving, brimming with insight and observation, The Night Book is at once a meditation on power and politics, and an intensely humane look at the choices people make as they struggle, against the odds, to maintain love and integrity in their lives.

Rushing from one crisis to another, Penny Rushmore has a name to live up to, coping with a demanding job and still adapting to life without her husband Steve. The first set-back comes when she hears that the glamorous young woman Steve took off with is pregnant. According to Charlotte, Penny's daughter, Steve and Jacinta are head over heels about each other. According to Penny's son, Charlotte is also head over heels - about her ageing university lecturer. But is Penny head over heels about her new boyfriend or is she too frantic running between disasters to find out? And is her elderly father still head over heels about his wife or has her advanced dementia driven him over the edge?Funny and fast-paced, this is a candid and entertaining novel about finding some sort of balance in your life while being stuck in the Sandwich Generation - sandwiched between the demands of ageing parents, teenagers, a career and a badly behaved spaniel.

Elena catches a glimpse of her friend Jeanie Roper in a New Zealand art gallery. It is twenty-three years since Jeanie suddenly disappeared. They had been close when Jeanie lived in Samoa with her bullying husband and gentle father. But why is Jeanie hiding her identity? Elena is intrigued to discover Jeanie has a daughter who is unaware of her Samoan ancestry. There are family secrets here - possibly dangerous ones - that Elena is determined to uncover.Inheritance is a novel of contrasts: the tropical beauty and exuberance of Samoa in the 1960s; and the dark violence that arises from the conflict between truthfulness and love.

It's been 30 years since Dame Fiona Kidman's first book of poems was published, and now she is back with another, perfectly timed for her 70th birthday in March 2010. There has been renewed interest in her poetry since the recent publication of her memoirs, and this exquisitely packaged collection will not disappoint. Ranging over wide territory, from imagining her Irish grandmothers' arrival in New Zealand, to wearing Katherine Mansfield's shawl, to time spent in Greece and in her garden, the poems are by turns tender and funny, candid and brave. They bear all the hallmarks of Kidman's writing: acute observation, a telling eye for detail, a wry humour and great empathy. "Superb poetry. A truly lovely little book." Metro