The Party Line
By Sue Orr (Penguin Random House)
Aucklander Sue Orr is a writer of taut, terrific short stories and her first novel has grown out of one that appeared in her debut collection. It's a Kiwi-as tale set mostly in a rural farming community in the early 70s. It opens in 2014 as farmer's daughter Nicola Walker drives back to her childhood home for a funeral. On the trip she is haunted by memories of the past and a guilty secret she has carried into adulthood. She recalls the winter a new sharemilker arrived on her family's farm with his intriguing, headstrong, glamorous daughter Gabrielle. Gabrielle is trouble; that's what all the local parents say. As the two become friends Nickie finds herself for the first time questioning the way things have always been. Gabrielle leads, and she follows, and they fall into an adult world whose subtleties they don't understand. Orr's forte is careful, elegant prose and in The Party Line she shines light on the toughness of rural life, the claustrophobia of small-towns and the confusion of being a teenager. This is strikingly good New Zealand storytelling.
Primates Of Park Avenue
By Wednesday Martin (Simon & Schuster)
When Wednesday Martin moved to New York's Upper East Side she discovered a new tribe of women she struggled to fit in with. From organising elitist play-dates for their kids to shoving each other out the way with their statement handbags, this tight group of moneyed mothers proved difficult to make any headway with. Until Martin began looking at them in a different way, using her background in anthropology and primatology, and suddenly so much about their behaviour made sense. Sometimes the science feels a bit forced but the comparisons between this Lululemon-clad troupe of yummy mummies and a bunch of baboons proves a surprisingly useful way for Martin to decode their social mores. Plus she shares fascinating details - what it costs to maintain their looks and the anxieties that underpin their glossy lives.
Nadia Lim's Fresh Start Cookbook
(Penguin Random House)
MasterChef winner Nadia Lim has built a hugely successful foodie career. Her latest book hooks into the trend for healthier eating and, as she's a qualified dietitian, she knows what she's talking about. Lim says this is a guide to creating nourishing, healthy meals with an eye to calorie control and portion size, along with suggested eating plans to ensure you get the right nutritional balance. Plus she's teamed up with exercise coach Michael McCormack and designed an exercise programme. Among the 100 recipes are tempting ideas for weekend breakfasts - one-pan Turkish eggs and chickpeas in smoky tomato sauce, for instance - and quick ways to jazz up your weekday scrambled eggs or porridge. Adult lunchbox options include fresh, easy noodle dishes and Middle Eastern-inspired fare. And dinner ideas like pizza with a cauliflower-crust base and an eggplant lasagne keep things interesting.
The Girl In The Spider's Web
By David Lagercrantz (MacLehose Press)
Highly anticipated and controversial, the official continuation of Stieg Larsson's Millennium series by a new author is now a reality. Some will dislike this novel on principle, but those who approach with at least a partially open mind will be pleasantly surprised. It's a very good read and it's terrific to see vengeful hacker Lisbeth Salander back on the page. In The Girl In The Spider's Web Lagercrantz does a fine job delving deeper into Salander's enigmatic character, providing more texture without losing the mystery and uncertainty that makes her so compelling. Famed crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist is discussing corporate espionage with a potential source when he - and the reader - is electrified by a passing mention of an anti-social female hacker. The trail leads to a renowned scientific genius, who is attacked the night he is to meet Blomkvist. His work has disappeared and his autistic son is under threat by a shadowy crime cabal. Lagercrantz juggles the players well, threading in social commentary as he builds the book from intriguing to absorbing to a thrilling finish as Blomkvist and Salander battle NSA spies, Swedish authorities, Eastern European gangsters and dangerous figures from the past.
• Review by Craig Sisterson who blogs about crime fiction at kiwicrime.blogspot.co.nz
Pretty Is
By Maggie Mitchell (Orion)
Tales of people kidnapped and subsequently escaping are fascinating to the public but the story of what happens in the years after they survive is what drives this new thriller. Pretty Is is told in the alternating voices of Lois and Carly-May, abducted when they were 12 and held together for two months. The subsequent adult lives of the two characters are seemingly separate but entwined again by their haunting shared experience. This is a layered, compelling book, thrilling and intriguing. Mitchell does an incredible job of revealing the nature of shared memories as well as the stories we tell ourselves to survive and grow.
• Review by Ngaire Atmore Pattison who blogs about books at bookiemonster.co.nz
Samurai vs Ninja: The Battle For The Golden Egg
By Nick Falk and Tony Flowers (Penguin Random House)
Samurai vs Ninja is a series of children's books set in the Edo Period of Japan, where the serious samurai and scheming ninjas fight for supremacy. This is the first in the series and it's perfect for any 6-9-year-old boy who is a reluctant reader, because it's written with plenty of slapstick and gross jokes, as well as lots of drawings, not much text on each page and variations in text direction and style. Falk has a knack for talking to this age group, having written: the Saurus Street and Billy Is A Dragon series so if this gets your reluctant reader hooked on books, offer these afterwards.
• Review by journalist and author Danielle Wright.
Nicky's best read
New generations are still discovering the stories of New Zealand children's author Margaret Mahy. The Great White Man-Eating Shark has been re-released by UK publisher Orion in an Early Reader format with bright illustrations from Jonathan Allen.
Book lover
New Zealand businesswoman Diane Foreman has released her autobiography In The Arena (Penguin Random House)
The book I love most is... My current favourite novel is The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild because it beautifully combines my passions for art, food and business.
The book I'm reading right now is... Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. It explores topics like ageing, serious illness and death in a frank and professional way.
The book I want to read next is... Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee whose To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the greatest novels about moral courage ever written.
My favourite bookstore is... The Village Bookshop in Matakana.
The book that changed me is... Having It All by Helen Gurley Brown. Written in the 1980s, it profiled a woman who broke through every glass ceiling to become editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine and a global role model.
The book I wish I'd never read... I learn something from everything I read.