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The Ngaio Marsh Awards, in association with Hastings District Libraries and Wardini Books, invites booklovers to a thrilling evening featuring five talented Hawke's Bay storytellers.2023 Ngaio Marsh Awards winner Charity Norman chairs fellow 2025 Ngaios entrants Cristina Sanders, Gareth & Louise Ward, and Ray Wood in a criminally good korero about how they create memorable characters and exciting storylines, and the impact of real-life settings and themes on their books.
WHEN: Wednesday, 4 June 2025
WHERE: Havelock North Library, 30 Te Mata Road, Havelock North
WHEN: 5.45pm doors open for a 6pm panel.
Free Entry.
Charity is a Hawke's Bay writer who was born in Uganda and worked as a lawyer in northern England before immigrating to Aotearoa in 2002. Her novel AFTER THE FALL was a World Book Night title. Her seventh book, REMEMBER ME, won the 2023 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Novel. Her latest, HOME TRUTHS, is a thriller about the impact of online conspiracy theories.
Cristina is a Hawke’s Bay author of historical fiction who grew up in her family’s Gateway Bookshop in Wellington, where all books were tested on children. She later worked in marketing and publishing in New Zealand and the UK. Her YA manuscript, DISPLACED, inspired by her family’s 19th century immigration from Norway, won the 2020 Storylines Tessa Duder Award. Cristina loves running in the hills of Hawke’s Bay and sailing on tall ships. Her latest adult novel is historical thriller OKIWI BROWN.
Gareth & Louise Ward are the real-life owners of independent bookshop Wardini Books, with stores in Havelock North and Napier. They met at police training college in the UK and are both ex-coppers. THE BOOKSHOP DETECTIVES: DEAD GIRL GONE is Gareth and Louise’s first book together, and was the biggest-selling New Zealand fiction title of 2024. A sequel, TEA AND CAKE AND DEATH, is coming out on 1 April 2025.
Ray is a marine geologist and author who grew up in Texas, and after graduating from university worked in East Africa before moving to New Zealand in 1979. He and his wife live on a small farm in the Hawke’s Bay. Ray loves the great outdoors, and writes stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, set in the worlds of farming, fishing, and forestry. His latest novel is FAMILY TREE, where a local forestry family becomes dangerously entwined with criminal gangs, cryptocurrency, and carbon credits.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
30 Te Mata Rd, Havelock North 4130, New Zealand, 30 Te Mata Rd, Havelock North 4130, New Zealand,Havelock North, New Zealand
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.