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VIOLET AND THE VELVETS AWARDS NEWS!

VIOLET AND THE VELVETS AWARDS NEWS!

14 April 2026 It's been a while since I've updated my news! I'm proud to say that Violet and the Velvets books #1 and #2 have been picking up great reviews and have been shortlisted for, longlisted for, and even won some awards! Violet and the Velvets: The Case of…
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BOOKS ALIVE!

BOOKS ALIVE!

This year, Violet and the Velvets: The Case of the Missing Stuff was a finalist in the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults! While it didn't win (it was up against the some stiff competition – it's really been a stellar year for Junior and Middlegrade fiction…
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AWARDS NEWS!

AWARDS NEWS!

It's been a big year! I'm proud to say that The Grimmelings has won both the New Zealand Booklovers' Award for Junior Fiction (jointly with the fabulous Raven's Eye Runaways by Claire Mabey), and the Hayden + Rollett Booksellers' Choice Children's Book Award 2025. The Booksellers' Choice Awards were decided…
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Reviews for The Grimmelings

Reviews for The Grimmelings

Here is what writers and reviewers have been saying about The Grimmelings: “The Grimmelings is a compelling, lovingly-crafted novel about magic, liminal spaces (of several kinds), language and folkloric fusion. Rachael King’s characters live and breathe. Her dialogue glitters quietly. She discovers new perspectives in inherited narratives to create a world that is familiar yet unexpected,…
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Secrets at Red Rocks is Here!

Secrets at Red Rocks is Here!

Secrets at Red Rocks, the television series adapted from my 2012 novel Red Rocks, is now available to watch! It's on Neon and Sky Open in New Zealand, and on BYUTv in the USA. Made by Libertine Pictures, directed by David Stubbs and written by Martha Hardy-Ward (lead writer), Steph…
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Announcing Violet and the Velvets!

Announcing Violet and the Velvets!

I am thrilled to introduce my new series to the world! The first book in the Violet and the Velvets series will be published by Allen and Unwin (New Zealand and Australia) in March 2025. It's about a primary school girls' punk band making their way through the BandChamps competition…
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AWARDS NEWS

AWARDS NEWS

The Grimmelings has been awarded a Storylines Notable Book Award 2024, and has been longlisted in the UKLA awards, which are "given every year for books in which the language is powerful. It must have an effect on the child reader and be memorable in some way because of the…
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Red Rocks is coming to the screen!

Red Rocks is coming to the screen!

Exciting news! I am over the moon to share the full announcement of Libertine Pictures adaptation for Sky Originals (NZ) and BYUtv (US) of my middlegrade novel of selkie-folklore-meets-the-New-Zealand-coast, Red Rocks! Look at that beautiful cast! I couldn’t have asked for a better treatment of my story from director David…
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Events in October and November 2024

Events in October and November 2024

It's another busy couple of months for events in October and November! I'll be appearing at the following festivals run by fabulous folks. Hawkes Bay Readers & Writers Festival Saturday, 19 October: Ageless Magic, with Shelley Burne-Field and Claire Mabey, chaired by Catherine Robertson Nelson Arts Festival – Pukapuka Talks…
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The Grimmelings Launch Speech by Elizabeth Knox

The Grimmelings Launch Speech by Elizabeth Knox

Thank you very much to Elizabeth Knox, one of the very best writers I know, for this thoughtful and meaningful speech at the Wellington launch of The Grimmelings at Unity Books, February 2024 A missing child, a lonely place. Ella, our protagonist, who is blessed and burdened by a distracted…
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