The Press Christchurch Writers Festival is running from September 9-12 at the Christchurch Town Hall. Rachael will be appearing alongside Australian author Kirsten Reed and veteran of lovely books Barbara Trapido in a session entitled Good Stories on Friday September 10 at 3.30. For more information about what they will be discussing, go here.

I have great pleasure in announcing that Sarah Laing has won the award for the best book cover at the PANZ Book Design Awards for Magpie Hall! Sarah was a pleasure to work with and is an amazingly talented designer, illustrator and writer. Visit my blog for more about Sarah.

Rachael will be appearing at a FREE event at the Auckland Writers’ Festival on Saturday, May 15, at the Upper NZI Room, Aotea Centre at 11.30, alongside Paula Morris. The two authors will be discussing their latest work and what it means to be a working novelist today. For more information, go here.

Magpie Hall has been released and you can read about the launch here. Also, you can watch Rachael talking about the book on Good Morning, and listen to an interview with Lynn Freeman on the Arts on Sunday programme on Radio New Zealand National. This interview also features Rachael’s brother Jonathan King talking about his new film Under the Mountain.

My new novel is finished! It’s called Magpie Hall, and will be released by Vintage (Random House) in November in New Zealand. International editions TBC.

Here is the back cover blurb:

“There were two rumours surrounding my great-great-grandfather Henry Summers: one, that his cabinet of curiosities drove him mad; and two, that he murdered his first wife.”

Rosemary Summers is an amateur taxidermist and a passionate collector of tattoos. To her, both activities honour the deceased and keep their memory alive. After the death of her beloved grandfather, and while struggling to finish her thesis on gothic Victorian novels, she returns alone to Magpie Hall to claim her inheritance: Read more…