From the acclaimed author of Cloud and The Dutch Wife, an early novel of Gothic terror that creeps into the blood and captivates with hypnotic fascination. On his deathbed, Ezra Stevenson's grandfather bequeaths him a macabre tale of domestic violence. Driven to investigate his grandfather's account of the four Mackenzie children and their monstrous family history, Ezra embarks on a horrific voyage of discovery, deception and revelation.

In the city of Chicago there is a school named Hellen High School where the students are out of control. They don't listen to any adult figure. Knife fights, gun shots, teachers getting stabbed, principals getting shot, kids having sex in the bathrooms and anything else mischievous the students at Hellen High School can pull off, they will do. Gangs run rampant over the high school, causing fear among the students who are not affiliated with any gangs. Willis Miles, a police officer, knew he would need a teenager to work undercover at the school with him to find out why the school is so corrupt. He recruits an eighteen year old vigilante from California named Quintin Morrieson. He has a reputation of getting to the truth and bringing criminals to justice. Although there isn't anything that scares Quintin, attending a high school with a history of violence will be his biggest obstacle. He will quickly learn things are not always as easy as he thinks.

A collection of 24 short stories by one of New Zealand's top living writers of short stories. Funny, affectionate, astute and touching, they explore the worlds of small-town communities, their loves and losses, and their dreams. Owen Marshall possesses a matchless ability to move easily from sharp comedy to elegiac sadness, from the delightfully accurate pricking of pretensions to the moving examination of the deepest human emotions and frailties. Marshall is never content to mine old ground. His familiar small-town and rural landscapes have their place in WHEN GRAVITY SNAPS but so, too, do smart urban parties, the pettiness of school and university hierarchies, the perspectives of elderly men and women with long, rich lives behind them, the search for human connection and warmth in an often capricious world. Funny, moving, challenging and memorable, this new collection of beautifully calibrated stories will be welcomed by Marshall fans, and new readers, everywhere.

When John Summers moved to a small town in the Wairarapa and began to look closely at the less-celebrated aspects of local life &– our club rooms, freezing works, night trains, hotel pubs, landfills &– he saw something deeper. It was a story about his own life, but mostly about a place and its people. The story was about life and death in New Zealand.Combining reportage and memoir, The Commercial Hotel is a sharp-eyed, poignant yet often hilarious tour of Aotearoa: a place in which Arcoroc mugs and dog-eared political biographies are as much a part of the scenery as the hills we tramp through ill-equipped. We encounter Elvis impersonators, the eccentric French horn player and adventurer Bernard Shapiro, Norman Kirk balancing timber on his handlebars while cycling to his building site, and Summers' s grandmother: the only woman imprisoned in New Zealand for protesting World War Two. And we meet the ghosts who haunt our loneliest spaces.As he follows each of his preoccupations, Summers reveals to us a place we have never quite seen before.&‘ Clever, funny, boundlessly curious, The Commercial Hotel is a dazzling New Zealand opportunity shop, floor to ceiling with lost books and impos