Ngaio Marsh Awards 2025
The 2025 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel went to Otago-based academic turned author Wendy Parkins, for THE DEFIANCE OF FRANCES DICKINSON (Affirm Press), based on a true 1830s story, a young heiress has a daring plan to escape her abusive, gaslighting husband.
2025 Ngaios Best Non-Fiction winners are investigative journalist Kirsty Johnston & academic James Hollings, co-writers of THE CREWE MURDERS (Massey University Press), which harnesses striking new testimony to tell the most in-depth version of NZ’s most infamous cold case.
The 2025 Ngaio for Best Novel went to Māori filmmaker and author Michael Bennett for RETURN TO BLOOD (Simon & Schuster Australia), where a skeleton in the sand dunes upturns ex-Auckland police detective Hana Westerman’s hometown respite from the tumult of criminal investigations.