The Mires
25 September 2025Imprint: Footnote Press
Synopsis
'Water will come and you think it will be soft. You think it will be smooth and find its way around your things: your houses and cars and furniture, your gardens and windows and hope. But water can be the foot of an elephant, the horns of a moose, a herd of buffalo running from a lion, water can be the kauri falling in the forest, a two-tonne truck, a whole stadium filled with 50,000 people, screaming . . . Water is life, and water can be death.'
Three women give birth in different countries and different decades. In the near future, they become
neighbours in a coastal town in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Single parent Keri has her hands full with four-year-old Walty and teen Wairere, a strange and gifted child who is drawn to the waters of the indigenous wetlands. New to the street is Sera and her family, who are refugees from ecological devastation in Europe and living next door is Janet, an older white woman with an opinion about everything.
When Janet's adult son Conor unexpectedly arrives home sporting a fresh buzzcut and a disturbing tattoo, no one suspects just how extreme the young man has become - no one except Wairere who can feel both the danger, and the swamp beneath their street, watching and waiting.
FINALIST OF THE OCKHAM NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARDS 2025
Three women give birth in different countries and different decades. In the near future, they become
neighbours in a coastal town in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Single parent Keri has her hands full with four-year-old Walty and teen Wairere, a strange and gifted child who is drawn to the waters of the indigenous wetlands. New to the street is Sera and her family, who are refugees from ecological devastation in Europe and living next door is Janet, an older white woman with an opinion about everything.
When Janet's adult son Conor unexpectedly arrives home sporting a fresh buzzcut and a disturbing tattoo, no one suspects just how extreme the young man has become - no one except Wairere who can feel both the danger, and the swamp beneath their street, watching and waiting.
FINALIST OF THE OCKHAM NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARDS 2025
Details
25 September 2025320 pages
9781804441909Imprint: Footnote Press
Reviews
The Mires is about the monsters we've created and the power we have to stop them. A truly magnificent novelShankari Chandran, author of CHAI TIME AT CINNAMON GARDENS
The Mires is that rarest of creatures, a beautifully written, page turner. I couldn't put it down. Charged with urgency and imagination, Makereti's novel introduces us to a group of women whose stories are inseparably entwined with both one and other's and that of the land. This is both a timely and timeless novel. It manages to strike a much-needed hopeful note whilst simultaneously sharing some devastating truths.Jan Carson, author and writer
The Mires is a work of art. The impacts of colonisation, movement, and climate change cut to the bone in glittering prose and through characters kept close as neighbours. In The Mires, the environment speaks, culture transcends boundaries and the myriad ideas of home are bitterly defended. Only Tina Makereti could hold a reader in such tense tendernessLaura Jean McKay, author of GUNFLOWER
An enchanting novel: poignant, earnest and lyrical, this story will settle in your bonesMaxine Beneba Clarke, author of THE HATE RACE