Displaced, by Cristina Sanders
Eloise and her family must leave Cornwall on a treacherous sea journey to start a new life in Colonial New Zealand. Below decks is Lars and the Norwegian immigrants, bonded to years of tree felling around Norsewood. Their lives, and struggles, intertwine.
A story for YA readers. Published by Walker Books April 2021
Jerningham, by Cristina Sanders
Edward Jerningham Wakefield was the wild-child of the Wakefield family, brewing trouble in New Zealand between settlers, government, missionaries and Māori over land and souls and rights. Alive with historical detail, Jerningham tells a vivid and important story of Wellington’s colonial beginnings and of a charismatic young man’s rise and inevitable fall.
Published by Cuba Press, June 2020
About Jerningham:
“A spectacular debut that brings us an immersive, intelligent and well researched insight into the early days of New Zealand’s European settlement.” – Mandy Hager
“Carefully researched and emotionally alive, it is an all-absorbing journey to the founding of Wellington. In this debut novel, Cristina Sanders charts the tensions and triumphs of the historical era that shaped modern New Zealand. Dont even bother trying to put it down until the end!” – Thom Conroy
Jerningham, by Cristina Sanders, is published by Cuba Press with printing sponsored by Wakefields Digital.
BUY from New Zealand bookshops; mail order from The Cuba Press; or download the ebook on Amazon kindle.
We had two launch parties which also celebrated Jerningham’s 200th birthday. I think he would have loved them. Launch party photos here.
Media
Interview with Barry Crump of RNZ on the background to Jerningham
Interview with Jill Miller at Radio Kidnappers
Interview on MPR Manawatū People’s Radio: Words from the Bubble
Review Book of the week, Lydia Wevers in the Reading Room.
Review in the Auckland Herald, by Elizabeth Heritage (who missed the point…)
Review in Landfall, Portraits of New Zealand history by Cushla McKinney
The arrival of the ship the Aurora in Port Nicholson on January 22, 1840, marked the beginning of New Zealand’s first systematically settled colony, one of many towns to be designed by Edward Gibbon Wakefield and the New Zealand Company in London.
Though we mark that date as the founding of Wellington, it wasn’t called Wellington then, and the first colonials were camping across the harbour at Pito-one.
They called the new settlement “Britannia”, and the men who had arrived only a few weeks earlier on the survey ship the Cuba were busy trying to peg out a town for the settlers on the shifting gravel of the Heretaunga River. There were floods and fires and earthquakes. Within a few months they moved across the harbour to Te Aro, and the new town became Wellington 10 months later.
Wakefield came up with the concept of transplanting the best of a cross-section of English society to a new land while he was languishing in Newgate Prison, in London. He and his brother William were serving time for abducting an heiress – an early example of his get-rich-quick schemes – but that’s another story.
Read more: Link to the full article
