A Place to Stand

‘Helen McNeil’s story, set in Kawerau during the 1950s when the town is being constructed around the mill, is uniquely New Zealand. The main character, Sandra McLeod, arrives as a child from England with her ‘£10 Pom’ family, but their new life isn’t what they’d hoped it might be. Via flashbacks recalled by Sandra when she returns to Kawerau to visit her ailing mother in 1975, Helen McNeil skilfully describes the gradual disintegration of the McLeod family in realistic, evocative and sometimes gruelling detail. There is a sense, too, with the presence of the Maori and Catholic elements of the story, that Kawerau, perched as it is on a brittle volcanic crust, is a mystical place where both good and bad fortune can be magnified. The revelation of Sandra’s secrets is perfectly timed to keep the reader turning pages, and the conclusion is as satisfying as you could hope for. A compelling and really quite haunting read from a new and distinctive voice in New Zealand fiction. I thoroughly enjoyed it.’ Deborah Challinor, top selling author of the Children of War Trilogy, Isle of Tears (2009), Band of Gold (2010)