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Fascinating threesome, Rosemary Wildblood

Obsession
Elspeth Sandys
Upstart Press, $35.00,
ISBN 9781927262900

Set mostly in the 1980s, Elspeth Sandys’s Obsession explores the dynamics of a relationship fuelled by desire and driven by a symbiotic need for intimacy. The narrative is purportedly written by a third party – who bears the sobriquet of the Dally poet – in a manuscript we are told in the foreword was discovered after his death. For those who like to judge a book by its cover, its design features three pressed flowers on a parchment-coloured background bearing faint traces of script, with the same theme continued through to the back in a graphic depiction of its contents. Combined with creamy pages inside, it’s a handsome book to own and shelve.

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Changes of heart and mind, John McCrystal

Pentimento Rosemary Wildblood Wily Publications, $30.00, ISBN 9781927167090 The Fall of Light Sarah Laing Vintage, $38.00, ISBN 9781775533030 Settling into a novel can be a lot like going away on holiday with people you don’t know, or settling into a

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Editorial – Issue 73

Guest editorial Against complacency When I arrived in New Zealand 28 years ago I confessed to an eminent seismologist that, although an avid reader, I knew little about New Zealand writing. Fortunately for me he was a Renaissance man with

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Family gatherings, Isa Moynihan

Lily’s Cupola Bronwyn Tate University of Otago Press, $29.95, ISBN 1877276596 Bloom Kelly Ana Morey Penguin, $27.95, ISBN 0143018922 Joybird Rosemary Wildblood David Ling, $29.95, ISBN 0998990901 The three-generation novel has always been popular with women writers. Besides Lily’s Cupola, Bloom

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