by Laura Vincent
- RRP $35 (paperback), $15 (ebook)
- ISBN: 9780473745684 (paperback), 9780473745691 (ebook)
- 264pp
- Released October 31 2025
- 135 × 216mm portrait
- Shortlisted for the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Books Awards Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction
You can purchase a paperback copy from Unity Books and an ebook from meBooks.
Rita considered the dead. Shut her eyes. Rolled their names around her brain. Stacked each person in order like folded laundry, warm and crisp from the sun. She wondered how her name would sound amongst them.
In the rural reaches of Auckland, the women of the eclectic Gordon family gather for Christmas. They may push each other’s buttons, but know precisely when to offer tea (or a tipple). Rita, the 50-year-old baby of the family, is planning to tell them she has cancer. Drifting between past and present, she considers the lives of women in their community and reckons with what it all means for her future and her family.
Featuring elderly lesbians, twins who aren’t twins, and several dogs named Roger, Hoods Landing is about shoddy pasts, ambiguous futures and the imperfect bonds that tie family together.
This is a deeply affecting book . . . Vincent seamlessly and skilfully weaves the aesthetics of film, musical, opera, food and the occult to create a work about love and death like no other I can remember. This compelling work breaks new ground in the literary landscape of Aotearoa.Pip Adam
Debut novelist Laura Vincent rises to the occasion, not only meeting the moment but laying her claim in the canon of contemporary New Zealand fiction. […] Vincent engages imaginatively with the concept of contemporary Indigenous identities and Hood’s Landing joins a growing body of thought on how to live in the present – a way of being that is not always straightforward.
Mairātea Mohi for Kete Books
It’s a tremendous family drama; operatic in scope, intimately detailed, deeply funny, and so real it scratches a familiar itch.
Sam Brooks for The Spinoff
This book is funny and sad and joyous all at the same time. It is also the next to read for those who are searching for their next Greta & Valdin.
Jenna Todd for RNZ
Laura Vincent (Ngati Mahanga, Ngapuhi) is an author from Waiuku, with writing published locally and internationally, including in The Spinoff, PUHIA, and the No Other Place to Stand and Spoiled Fruit anthologies, amongst others. Her poem ‘ACTIVITIES’ was part of an installation at Britomart for the 2023 Auckland Writers Festival Waituhi o Tamaki and she has spoken in panel discussions for STREETSIDE: Britomart, bad apple, and Same Same But Different.
Media for Hoods Landing
‘“Frankly, it does a disservice to hot redheads”: Laura Vincent’s life in books’, Laura Vincent for The Spinoff Book Confessional, 29/10/2025
‘Laura Vincent – Hoods Landing’, Amy Delahunty and Laura Vincent for In the Neighbourhood on Wellington Access Radio, 31/10/2025
‘“Compelling work that breaks new ground” — Pip Adam launches Hoods Landing’, bad apple, 6/11/2025
‘Book Critic: Book things related to ‘Hoods Landing’’, Afternoons, RNZ, 11/11/2025
‘Critical Corner: Hoods Landing, Life on a Loop’, Sam Brooks for Dramatic Pause, 12/11/2025
‘Book review: Hoods Landing by Laura Vincent’, Elizabeth Heritage for Nine to Noon, RNZ, 13/11/2025
‘Loose Reads w/ Jenna’, Jenna Todd for 95bFM, 17/11/2025
‘Review: Hoods Landing is a gorgeous family drama – and a stunning debut’, Sam Brooks for The Spinoff (republished from Dramatic Pause), 22/11/2025
‘Review: Hoods Landing, by Laura Vincent’, Mairātea Mohi for Kete Books, 23/11/2025
‘An Interview with Laura Vincent on Hoods Landing’, Holly-Blue Bercu and Anuja Mitra for bad apple, 08/12/2025
‘Hoods Landing’, Laura Borrowdale for takahē, 12/12/2025
‘The best books of 2025’, Jenna Todd for RNZ, 18/12/2025
‘Book review with Bonnie Harrison’, Bonnie Harrison on Summer Times, RNZ, 20/01/2026
‘Book Review: Hoods Landing’, Bel Moneypenny for Scorpio Books, 01/02/2026
‘Bookmarks with Ockham NZ Book Award finalist Laura Vincent!’, with Jesse Mulligan on Afternoons, RNZ, 04/03/2026
‘“I don’t personally need any more wispy waifish characters”: Laura Vincent’s hot take on writing’, Laura Vincent in Shameless Plug for The Big Idea, 18/03/2026
