Books by Fiona Kidman

Kidman's powerful novel explores the controversial topic of the death penalty with characteristic empathy and a probing eye for injustice. Winner of The Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2019, the New Zealand Booklovers' Prize for Fiction 2019, and the New Zealand Heritage Book Awards 2018.

The dark legacy of the past echoes through the generations in this moving family saga beginning in 1950s New Zealand.

The lives of a group of young women converge in 1960s New Zealand in a moving time- and continent-spanning saga.

The rise and fall of the 'Garbo of the skies', as told by one of New Zealand's finest novelists. Jean Batten became an international icon in 1930s. A brave, beautiful woman, she made a number of heroic solo flights across the world. The newspapers couldn't get enough of her. In 1934, she broke Amy Johnson's flight time between England and Australia by six days. The following year, she was the first woman to make the return flight. In 1936, she made the first ever direct flight between England and New Zealand and then the fastest ever trans-Tasman flight. Jean Batten stood for adventure, daring, exploration and glamour. The Second World War ended Jean's flying adventures. She suddenly slipped out of view, disappearing to the Caribbean with her mother and eventually dying in Majorca, buried in a pauper's grave. Fiona Kidman's enthralling novel delves into the life of this enigmatic woman. It is a fascinating exploration of early aviation, of fame, and of secrecy.

The scene is Auckland during the Second World War. In the warrenlike old tenement the residents call Paddy's Puzzle, Clara Bentley awaits the arrival of Ambrose, her black lover, an American marine. She also waits for the bomb that might fall when the air raid siren sounds at night. She waits for visits from the strange inhabitants of the Puzzle-prostitutes; blackmarketeers; old Ma Hollis, who helps her keep body and soul together; and a host of others. She waits, too, for the culmination of an illness that has weakened her irremediably.