Barbara Ewing Book order

This vivid memoir by well-known New Zealand actor and novelist Barbara Ewing covers her tumultuous childhood, adolescence and young-adulthood in Wellington and Auckland in the 1950s and early 1960s - a very different time - and ends in 1962, when she boards a ship for London, to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. It draws heavily on the diaries she kept from the age of twelve, which lead her to some surprising conclusions about memory and truth. Ewing struggled with what would now be diagnosed as anxiety; she had a difficult relationship with her brilliant but frustrated and angry mother; and her decision to somehow learn te reo Maori drew her into a world to which few Pakeha had access. A love affair with a young Maori man destined for greatness was complicated by society's unease about such relationships, and changed them both. Evocative, candid, brave, bright and darting, this entrancing book takes us to a long-ago New Zealand and to enduring truths about love

The Victorian gossipmongers called them The Petticoat Men. But to young Mattie Stacey they are Freddie and Ernest, her gentlemen lodgers. She doesn't care that they dress up in sparkling gowns to attend society balls as 'Fanny and Stella'. She only cares that they are kind to her, make her laugh, and pay their rent on time. Then one fateful night, Fanny and Stella are arrested, and Mattie – outraged but staunch – is dragged into a shocking court trial, hailed in newspapers all over England as 'The Scandal of the Century'.

The new novel from the author of The Mesmerist and The Fraud

This is a rich historical novel set in 18th-century London. 1763. Filipo di Vecellio of Florence, portrait painter, is the toast of London: rich, successful and married to a beautiful woman. Their house is the hub of the art world but beneath the surface, the house conceals a swarm of dangerous secrets.

As a child, Rosetta is fascinated by words and loves being told stories. She thinks she is named after the Princess Rosetta of the fairytales, who married the King of the Peacocks and lived happily ever after. But when she finds that it is a mysterious small port town in Egypt that gave her her name, her interest in hieroglyphics is born. Years later, when Rose is an older, wiser and sadder woman, it is her love of language that saves her life. The French Revolution; the rise of the power of the English church; the battles for Egypt between the British and the French; the discovery of the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone in that same small port town - and above all the machinations of a rich, amoral, social-climbing member of the new' aristocracy and the extraordinary characters that surround him - all whirlpool together to carry Rose into France and a shared moment with Napoleon Bonaparte, and into the dark, unknown world of North Africa in her search to understand the meaning of words, and to find a child of her own.

1849. At sixteen, Harriet Cooper has only one person keeping her from ruin, her older sister, Mary. Their father, Sir Charles, is obsessed with his youngest child and because their mother is dead it is Mary who keeps watch over Harriet's bedroom door. But when Mary dies in London's cholera epidemic, Harriet becomes a prisoner in her own home, her father would rather she acted as his wife than his daughter and she can see nothing but horror before her. It seems impossible, but her only escape route is to flee after her cousin Edward who has recently emigrated to the new colony of New Zealand. Sheltered as her life has been, Harriet discovers untapped reserves of bravery and courage and manages to get herself on a boat bound for Wellington. But as soon as her father realises what she has done, he chases her across oceans and uncharted waters to the other side of the world, where thousands have gone seeking a new life and where Harriet thought he would never find her...

Struggling to find her identity in a peculiar household, Margaret Rose Bennett diverges from her parents' expectations and embraces a new path in New Zealand. She studies Maori at university and forms a close bond with Emily, the daughter of a future Prime Minister, and the independent Prudence. Together, they navigate academia, work, and vibrant social lives, immersing themselves in Maori culture. Their journey reveals an enchanting world filled with passion and conflict, challenging the constraints of Margaret's upbringing and uncovering hidden family secrets.

Perceptive, poignant, clever and funny, this is a superb and rich novel of a time, and an age, that comes to us all číst celé