The Mires

(Paperback)

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LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 OCKHAM NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARDS

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 tearaway Walty and teen Wairere, a strange and gifted child, who always picks up on things that aren't hers to worry about. They live next door to Janet, a white woman with an opinion about everything, and new arrival Sera, whose family are refugees from ecological devastation in Europe.

When Janets son Conor arrives home without warning, sporting a fresh buzzcut and a new tattoo, the quiet tension between the neighbours grows, but no one suspects just how extreme Conor has become. No one except Wairere, who can feel the danger in their midst, and the swamp beneath their street, watching and waiting.

The Mires is a tender and fierce novel that asks what we do when faced with things we dont understand. Is our impulse to destroy or connect

Reviews

a novel of real complexity and power, in which care and connection are centred, and the interwoven nature of belonging, place and ecology is brought alive in affecting and productive new ways The Saturday Paper

The Mires has a modest flourish of magical realism, but its the unflinching attention to reality that grabs you. Makereti has a gift for portraying immense social problems through the human dimensions of domestic life. The Age

The Mires clearly speaks to how connection and understanding can be a powerful force for change; in recognising the things that bind us, represented by the powerful, watery flow underpinning the book, we are forced to see just how intimately connected we all are. The Spinoff

The Mires is about the monsters weve created and the power we have to stop them. A truly magnificent novel. Shankari Chandran, author of Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens

a masterclass in social realism with just a touch of magic ... The Mires grips the readers attention and holds it right to the end Books+Publishing

a courageous book that shines a light on the darkest human behaviour and shows how the best of humanity can emerge from devastation, and triumph over hatred and violence Artshub

Gripping and masterful, wise and compassionate, The Mires is rich with insight into contemporary Aotearoa, its past and its potential futures. The Post

As both a writer and a refugee, this book resonates with my experiences, skilfully addressing the link between refugee lives, colonialism and climate change. Behrouz Boochani, author of No Friend but the Mountains

An immersive, unnerving novel about the hatred that can rise up out of the locked, curtained rooms in our neighbourhoods, and the comfort that can be found in anothers home. A story about people and the land they share. The memories stored in the water and peat. I read this book with equal measures of worry and hope. Becky Manawatu, author of Au

The Mires is an enchanting novel: poignant, earnest and lyrical, this story will settle in your bones. Maxine Beneba Clarke, author of The Hate Race

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 tenderness. Laura Jean McKay, author of The Animals in That Country

specific and textured: Makereti is strong on both domestic spaces and the natural world NZ Listener

A generous, openhearted novel which explores suburban love, hate, migration, climate change, prejudice, motherhood and the dangers lurking beneath the surface of New Zealand society ... effortlessly put together Waiheke Weekender

Its such a joy to read a novel thats rich in ideas, themes and metaphor while being completely revelatory of peoples lives and the things, the voices and the knowledge, good, bad or indifferent that they carry in their hearts. The Newsroom

a homage to the resilience of the human spirit and the importance of community NZ Booklovers

Makereti gives us a story of tension and tenderness, of magic and meaning, steeped in grace, and timeless wisdom. Kete Books

Author Bio

Tina Makereti is a New Zealander of Te tiawa, Ngti Twharetoa, Ngti Rangatahi-Matakore and Pkeh descent. Her novels include The Imaginary Lives of James Pneke and Where the Rkohu Bone Sings. In 2016 her short story Black Milk won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Pacific region. She also co-edited Black Marks on the White Page, an anthology that celebrates Mori and Pasifika writing, with Witi Ihimaera. Her novels, essays and short stories have won recognition in Aotearoa, and she has been the recipient of several writers residencies and awards. Tina teaches creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. She wrote The Mires while living on the Kpiti Coast of Aotearoa New Zealand.