Aotearoa Fiction (YA)

Looking for a great book by a New Zealander, for business (NCEA) or pleasure (it just makes you happy to read a good book)? Look no further than this very list, with approximately 45 of our fave Aotearoa YA titles. These books have been hand-selected for their delicious use of language and gripping, yet relatably Kiwi, narratives. You can find a much deeper exploration of Māori authors over on this list, so be sure to check it out as well.

Updated June 19, 2024
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Wellington City LibrariesYouth team at Wellington City Libraries
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Tonight, I burn
Adams, Katharine J
Paper Book
A witch with the power to walk between the realms of Life and Death finds herself at the centre of a magical rebellion - and a dangerous romance - that could destroy her coven and her soul in this dark and decadent debut. Perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas, Leigh Bardugo, and Chloe Gong.Thorns...
Draw me a hero
Ashworth, N. K.
Paper Book
Jane Dawson is fourteen years old, lives with her mum and older sister, loves drawing and wears an old leather flying helmet. Facing another dull term at school, Jane loses herself in her art. But when a boy, Bailey Summer, moves in three doors down, with brooding good looks and a long grey...
I am not Esther
Beale, Fleur
Paper Book
Without warning, everything familiar to Kirby is snatched away. Even her name is changed. There is no television or radio. She must wear modest clothes and behave in a godly fashion. Her experience of life in a fundamentalist cult is drawn in convincing detail, building to a battle over identity.
Juno of Taris
Beale, Fleur
Paper Book
'Don't give up. Don't let them kill your spirit. Things will change. You need to be strong. You need to be ready. And you will need courage.' Juno is young; she has no authority, no power, and to question the ways of Taris is discouraged. She knows what it's like when the community...
Zombabe
Belle, I. S.
Paper Book
Two weeks before graduation, Henry "Babe" Simmons is resurrected by his best friend (and secret crush) Eugene "Dude" Marsh. Consequences include freaking out a town who just buried you, an overwhelming hunger for human flesh, and a monster who will step in if you...
How to get a girlfriend when you're a terrifying monster
Cardno, Marie
Paper Book
Life is tough when you're an eldritch abomination. Trillin isn't technically a person. She's a tiny breakaway piece of consciousness from the all-devouring Endless, doomed to eventually rejoin it. But when a human witch stumbles into her world, Trillin suddenly has a new...
Because everything is right but everything is wrong
Donohue, Erin
Paper Book
Can you be lost and not know it? Can other people stop you from being lost? Seventeen-year-old Caleb¿s world is disintegrating, his walls are closing in, his sky is threatening to fall. He¿s barely holding on. To deadlines. To friends. To family. To mum. To Pat. But he has Casey.
The sparrow
Duder, Tessa
Paper Book
An exciting new novel from the author of Alex. In September 1840, two ships arrive on the shores of the Waitemata Harbour to establish Auckland, the new capital of New Zealand. Among the settlers on board the Platina is young Harry, travelling alone and determined...
Andromeda Bond in trouble deep
Falkner, Brian
Paper Book
In a very near future the International Space Station has been replaced by a massive new satellite, known as Spacetown, complete with space hotel, restaurants, bars, fun park, and gaming arenas. When 12-year-old Andromeda is selected for the worlds first real life, zero gravity, live-streamed video...
Shooting stars : the private diary of Egan (Bush) Tucker and other stuff
Falkner, Brian
Paper Book
In 15 years, Egan Tucker has spoken to no-one but his mother. Escaping from an abusive husband, Moana (Moma) took baby Egan to live in the Coromandel bush. For 15 years, Moma taught Egan to survive, and instilled in him her code for a good life. A chance meeting with a DOC deer culler (JT) while out...
Between the flags
Fenton, Rachel
Paper Book
What if the worst thing that could ever happen to you had already happened, but you didn't realise? Like your brain couldn't handle it, so you turned it into a comic. Then closed it. Fourteen-year-old trainee lifeguard Mandy Malham has wanted to beat Jen in the surf lifesaving championships at...
Salt
Gee, Maurice.
Paper Book
In a dangerous world, Deep Salt strikes terror into the heart of everyone. Hari lives in Blood Burrow, deep in the ruined city of Belong, where he survives by courage and savagery. He is scarred from fighting, he is dangerous and cruel, but he has a secret gift: he can speak with animals. When his...
The 10 pm question
De Goldi, Kate
Paper Book
Published around the world to great acclaim. A tender, beautifully told, award - winning novel by New Zealand's most loved writer for children. Frankie Parsons is twelve going on old man: an apparently sensible, talented boy with a drumbeat of worrying questions steadily gaining volume in his head....
Eddy, Eddy
De Goldi, Kate
Paper Book
Eddy, Eddy is a coming of age story, a love story, an earthquake story and a story of finding your way back from grief.
These violent delights
Gong, Chloe
Paper Book
An Instant New York Times Bestseller! A BuzzFeed Best Young Adult Book of 2020 Perfect for fans of The Last Magician and Serpent & Dove, this heart-stopping debut is an imaginative Romeo and Juliet retelling set in 1920s Shanghai...
Singing home the whale
Hager, Mandy
Paper Book
An award-winning and extraordinary story of a boy who protects a baby whale that locals believe is threatening their livelihood. Winner of the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults 2015 Young Adult...
When we wake
Healey, Karen
Paper Book
The last thing Tegan remembers is the crack as the gun went off, intense pain, and everything fading to black. One hundred years later, she wakes up. A fast-paced near-future romance. 'A stirring and century-spanning adventure story that vividly shows how the future is created by our mistakes, our...
Legacy
Hereaka, Whiti
Paper Book
Seventeen-year-old Riki is worried about school and the future, but mostly about his girlfriend, who has suddenly stopped texting him. But on his way to see her, he's hit by a bus and his life radically changes. Riki wakes up one hundred years earlier in Egypt, in 1915, and finds he's living through...
Glimpse
Higgins, Jane
Paper Book
The city authorities have abandoned the D-Zone as damaged beyond repair. It's a no-go area where ongoing earthquakes threaten to destroy what's left. But Jonah and Bas and everyone else trying to survive in the devastation there can't leave-they're 'illegals', without citizenship, without...
Flight path
Hill, David
Paper Book
A gripping novel for young adults that captures both the daring and the everyday realities of serving in the Air Force during the Second World War. Pete and Paul yelled together. 'Bandit! Nine o'clock! Bandit!' Jack spun to stare. There was the Messerschmitt on...
The whale rider
Ihimaera, Witi
Paper Book
Witi Ihimaera's timeless story tells how the courage of one girl in standing against the tide of tradition enables her tribe to become reconnected with their ancestral life force. The Whale Rider has become one of Witi Ihimaera's best-loved stories, capturing readers with its universal themes of...
Lucy Bee & Soline
Ingram, Anne
Paper Book
"About Lucy 15, a New Zealander, and Soline 16, French exchange student. Topics: friendship, family, land ownership, belonging, different cultures, heritage, tapestries, historical mystery, contemporary issues, careers. Main theme: The importance of ones cultural past to ones identity and how...
Juggling with mandarins
Jones, V. M.
Paper Book
Pip's just your average teenage boy. Lives at home with his older brother, little sister, mum and dad. Plays in the local soccer team, though not very well, and is absolutely mortified every time his dad turns up to watch, because his dad, well, he does have a tendency to shout. Loudly. ...
The raging quiet
Jordan, Sherryl.
Paper Book
Marnie comes to the remote fishing hamlet of Torcurra as the reluctant bride of Isake Isherwood, a lord of her parents' farm. But two days later, while thatching the roof, Isake falls to his death. Marnie's only kindness comes from Father Brannan, the village priest, and Raver, the strange mad boy...
The po?rangi boy
Kino, Shilo
Paper Book
"Twelve-year-old Niko lives in Pohe Bay, a small, rural town with a sacred hot spring and a taniwha named Taukere. The government plan to build a prison here and destroy the home of the taniwha has divided the community. Some are against it, but others see it as an opportunity. Niko is worried about...
Mortal fire
Knox, Elizabeth
Paper Book
A mysterious and compelling teen fantasy novel. When sixteen-year-old Canny of the Pacific island, Southland, sets out on a trip with her stepbrother and his girlfriend, she finds herself drawn into enchanting Zarene Valley where the mysterious but dark seventeen-year-old Ghislain helps her to...
Miracle
Lane, Jennifer (Novelist)
Paper Book
'Miracle' won the Ngaio Marsh Award 2024 for the Best YA Novel and was shortlisted for the New Zealand Book Awards 2023. Born in the middle of Australia's biggest-ever earthquake, Miracle is fourteen when her world crumbles. Thanks to her dad's new job at...
The Rarkyn's Familiar
Lee, Nikky
Paper Book
"A stunning debut."-Aurealis Magazine "Steeped in other-worldly magic and adventure." -Andromeda Spaceways Magazine An orphan bent on revenge. A monster searching for freedom. A forbidden pact that binds their fates.<...
Evie's war
Mackenzie, Anna
Paper Book
They offered up the innocence of a generation . . . Evie is 18, straight out of school and excited by the prospect of a tour of Europe. Instead, she finds herself immersed in war; first in the Home Counties - where the young New Zealander is confronted not only by society's...
The tricksters
Mahy, Margaret
Paper Book
Reality and the supernatural intertwine in this exciting and chilling novel from an award-winning author; As the Hamiltons gather at their holiday beach house, Carnival's Hide, for their Christmas celebrations, the warm, chaotic familty atomosphere is chilled by the unexpected arrival of three...
Wildwood dancing
Marillier, Juliet.
Paper Book
"Juliet Marillier is among the most skilled of fantasy writers" (Sara Douglass)Jena, along with her five sisters and constant companion, the frog she calls Gogu, lives in a crumbling castle on the fringe of a wildwood in Transylvania. Theirs has always been a privileged if somewhat restricted life,...
Falling into Rarohenga
Matuku, Steph
Paper Book
"It seems like an ordinary day when Tui and Kae, sixteen-year-old twins, get home from school - until they find their mother, Maia, has disappeared and a swirling vortex has opened up in her room. They are sucked into this portal and dragged down to Rarohenga, the Mori Underworld, a place of...
Here upon the tide
McMillan, Blair
Paper Book
When Amir's city in Syria is bombed as civil war erupts, his father makes a fateful decision. Amir soon finds himself on a perilous journey by land and sea, with little hope of reaching his destination. Milly is still reeling from the aftermath of earthquakes in her home city of Christchurch. Her...
Catch a falling star
Merriman, Eileen (Haematologist)
Paper Book
A fifteen-year-old reaches for stardom as he slides into psychosis in this multiple-award-winning novel for teens. New Zealand Book Awards Young Adult Fiction Award 2024 NZ Booklovers Best Young Adult Book 2024 Storylines Notable Young Adult Fiction Book 2023 ...
Indigo moon
Merriman, Eileen (Haematologist)
Paper Book
Book 1 of the gritty, fast-paced, thought-provoking Eternity Loop Series. Promise you will never, ever mess with time . . . Both Rigel and Indigo are Offspring, born to virally optimised parents. With dire warnings about the possible consequences of time...
Hello strange
Morrow, Pamela
Paper Book
A vivid, fast-paced novel about artificial emotional intelligence. Since the death of their mother, Hunter, Milly and Coel have come unstuck. Their father isn't coping either, even though he's the successful head of BIOlogic and is developing a humanoid to enhance human...
Gideon the ninth
Muir, Tamsyn
Paper Book
Gideon the Ninth is the first book in the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Locked Tomb Series, and one of the Best Books of 2019 according to NPR, the New York Public Library, Amazon, BookPage, Shelf Awareness, BookRiot, and Bustle!...
Before George
Robertson, Deborah (Teacher)
Paper Book
When Marnya immigrates to New Zealand from South Africa in 1953 with her mother and sister, her mother cuts off Marnya's hair and changes her name to George to hide her identity as a girl. Hours later, their Christmas Eve train plummets into the Whangaehu River and George loses not only her...
Helen and the Go-Go Ninjas
Sang, Anthony
Paper Book
Kidnapped by time-travelling ninjas, Helen is thrust into the year 2355 - a ruined future with roving gangs and 'Peace Balls', giant humming devices that enslave and control people's minds. The Go-Go Ninjas have one goal - to destroy the Peace Balls. They believe that...
Ursa
Shaw, Tina
Paper Book
This alternate history coming-of-age YA is the Winner of the 2018 Storylines Tessa Duder Award. "An inferior people, that's what the Director called us at the beginning of his reign, but still useful." There are two peoples living in the city...
Dawn Raid
Smith, Pauline
Paper Book
Like many 13-year-old girls, Sofias main worries are how to get some groovy go-go boots, and how not to die of embarrassment giving a speech at school! But when her older brother Lenny starts talking about marches and protests and overstayers, and how Pacific Islanders are being bullied by the...
Tim Te Maro and the subterranean heartsick blues
Valley, H. S.
Paper Book
What happens when your enemy becomes your friend ... with benefits? Red, White and Royal Blue meets The Magicians in this surprising, wildly original and joyously funny LGBTQ YA novel set in a magical boarding school. 
Iris and me
Werry, Philippa
Paper Book
So begins the story of Iris Wilkinson, who wrote poetry, novels and journalism under the pen name Robin Hyde. In January 1938, she left New Zealand for England. On the way, intrigued by glimpses of China, she ventured inland despite the war raging there, becoming one of the first women war...
Aspiring
Wilkins, Damien
Paper Book
Sixteen-year-old Ricky has a part time job in a cafe in a South Island town being transformed by tourism. Over several months, as Ricky bicycles through the town and his daily round, we bear witness to his friendships, the trial and hilarity of school, his stirrings for prickly Keri, the mystery of...
Afakasi woman
Young, Lani Wendt
Paper Book
A collection of stories about the women of the Pacific, their struggles with family, love and the effects of climate change on their world. About the author: Lani Young is a Samoan/Maori author and columnist. In 2018, she was named the ACP Pacific Laureate, selected by the African, Caribbean,...

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