From the author of Denniston Rose and Heart of Coal her new book, Harbouring, is set amid the NZ Company’s arrival in Wellington and the establishment of the colony there.

It is a Welsh family from the foundries who are one of the first to join the scheme of Colonel William Wakefield. This is early Wellington as many stories depict it.  The towering trees and roughly cut roads, shining harbour full of ships and gutsy weather. There is bureaucratic bumbling, land sales and deeds changing hands with a wink and a shuffle, shifted survey pegs. People from home arrive to reinvent their lives.

Dicky Barrett, Mein Smith, Evans and Dorset, Shortland and Spain, the Wakefields. Te Puni and Wharepouri , Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata all feature in the story.