Petronella's Picks What we're loving now

Jake Bailey knows all about adversity - but also about resilience.As head boy at Christchurch Boys' High in 2015, Jake delivered his end-of-year speech from a wheelchair, only a week after being diagnosed with an extremely aggressive form...

A rich, immersive, funny and heartbreaking memoir of the charming bookseller who runs two tiny bookshops in the remote village of Manapouri in Fiordland, in the deep south of New Zealand. 'An extraordinary story.' Shaun Bythell, The Diary...

In the rolling farmland of America's Midwest, Gabriel Fisher is exceptional from the moment he is born, weighing in at an impossible eighteen pounds. He walks at eight months, possesses extraordinary athletic abilities and a gentleness that draws...

Taukiri was born into sorrow. Auē can be heard in the sound of the sea he loves and hates, and in the music he draws out of the guitar that was his father’s. It spills out of the...

When your life flashes before your eyes, where would you stop?No one can change the past, but the Midnight Train can take you there.The chance to re-live the moments that meant most.To see what kind of person you...

Resilient Grieving is a practical, research-based guide to finding your own path to recovery from devastating loss. Updated and revised edition, including new research. 'Hone shows us how to harness the (thankfully common) power of our own resilience...

A young man walks into the woods on the worst morning of his life and finds something there that will change everything. It's a tale that might seem familiar. But how it speaks to you will depend on...

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night cleaner shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Ever since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat over thirty years ago keeping busy has helped her cope....

A wonderful surprise gift from Alan Bennett, in his ninetieth year – a brand new novella, set in a home for the elderly; a glorious, darkly comic treat. We have a choir and on special occasions a glass...

Kathryn Stockett's first novel since the global bestselling phenomenon THE HELP- the sweeping story of a group of underestimated women and an 11-year-old orphan girl whose fates converge in Mississippi in 1933 Oxford, Mississippi, 1933. Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur...

Sometimes death is just the beginning ... Late 1872. When twenty-five-year-old Sydney undertaker Tatiana Crowe travels to Auckland to embalm the body of Evan Hunter's father events go horribly wrong, leaving Tatty stricken. Back at home, Tatty has...

The Dressmaker & the Hidden Soldier is based on the extraordinary true story of Peter Blunden, the New Zealand soldier, and Thalia Christidou, the young Greek dressmaker, and Tasoula Paschilidou, the resistance heroine.What follows is an epic love story...

Gwen doesn't want to admit that everything feels wrong since her mum died. There's no time for all these feelings now that she has her younger siblings to care for. Especially not since they've moved to their late...

An epic novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits. In the summer of 1980, Joan Goodwin begins training to be an...

Alchemist. Poisoner. Storm wielder. Epic, sizzling enemies-to-lovers romantasy, set in a world of dark magic, assassins and war, Iron & Embers by Helen Scheuereris perfect for fans of The Witcher and The Bridge Kingdom. Wren Embervale, alchemist-turned-assassin, finds...

FROM THE GLOBALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING Venice, 1486. Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives perfecting. In secret, Orsola Rosso learns to craft glass....

Your ability to change everything - including yourself - starts hereChemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing.But it's the early...

It's 1818 on the East Coast of Te Ika-a-Maui, Aotearoa. Hine-aute, granddaughter of the legendary warrior Kaitanga, is fleeing through the bush; a precious yet gruesome memento contained in her fishing net. What follows is the gripping tale...

‘Addictive’Independent‘Crack this book open and you’ll see how time can disappear’Financial Times‘Readers, I envy you: There’s a smart, witty novel in your future’Washington PostA civil servant is offered a lucrative job in a mysterious new government ministry gathering...

Ripped from a forgotten homeland as a child, Tisaanah learned how to survive with nothing but a sharp wit and a touch of magic. But the night she tries to buy her freedom, she barely escapes with her...

Fourth Wing meets The Hunger Games in this sizzling fantasy romance not to be missed.Only the extraordinary belong in the kingdom of Ilya . . . The exceptional. The Elites. The Elites have possessed powers for decades, gifted to them by the Plague, while those...

Sydney, 1865. Seventeen-year-old Tatiana Caldwell travels from London to make a new life. Her path leads her to Crowe Funeral Services, where she apprentices under the tutelage of Titus Crowe, the enigmatic owner. Tatty finds herself drawn to...

Welcome to the brutal and elite world of Basgiath War College, where everyone has an agenda, and every night could be your last . . . Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a...

OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK New York Times bestselling author Lara Love Hardin recounts her slide from soccer mom to opioid addict to jailhouse shot caller and her unlikely comeback as a highly successful ghostwriter in this harrowing, hilarious,...