Jerningham

Description

Edward Jerningham Wakefield was the wild-child of the Wakefield family that set up the New Zealand Company to bring the first settlers to this country. His story is told through the eyes of bookkeeper Arthur Lugg, who is tasked by Colonel William Wakefield to keep tabs on his brilliant but unstable nephew. As trouble brews between settlers, government, missionaries and Ma ori over land and souls and rights, Jerningham is at the heart of it, blurring the line between friendship and exploitation and spinning the hapless Lugg in his wake. Alive with historical detail, Jerningham tells a vivid story of Wellington's colonial beginnings and of a charismatic young man's rise and inevitable fall.

Cristina Sanders grew up in the family's Gateway Bookshop in Wellington, where all books were tested on children. She went on to work for some years in book marketing and publishing both in New Zealand and London, and has recently begun writing novels. Her young adult manuscript, Displaced, inspired by her family's immigration from Norway in the 1870s, won the 2020 Storylines Tessa Duder Award. Jerningham is her first novel for adults. Cristina lives in Hawke's Bay with her family, where she runs on the hills and, whenever she can, sails away on tall ships. www.cristinasanders.me