The Graphologist’s Apprentice
$19.00
Description
Title: The Graphologist’s Apprentice
Author: Whiti Hereaka
Publisher: Huia Publishers, Wellington, 2010
Format: Paperback
Condition: Very Good
Description:
January has changed her name by deed poll. She is not content with her home life or her workplace. She takes comfort in reading romance novels and in a fantasy she has constructed around a married man. Then she responds to a mysterious card with the words Tell me a secret… and meets Mae — an elderly graphologist, a reader of handwriting, a keeper of other people’s hidden things.
The Graphologist’s Apprentice is Whiti Hereaka’s debut novel: a domestic Wellington story about an unlikely friendship between two women, told with the precision and observation that its subject — graphology, the reading of character through handwriting — demands. It is funny, specific, and warm. It is also, quietly, about the difference between the stories we tell ourselves and the people we actually are.
Renee, one of NZ’s most significant Māori playwrights and novelists, endorsed it on publication: “the book had a grip on me and held on, there was no mercy. I had to finish it. And sometime before midnight, I did. Wonderfully enjoyable, imaginative, moving and funny. Great characters, especially January and Mae — they’ll stay with me for a long time.” The Otago Daily Times called it “immensely readable, with a vivid and economical language and a fine control of structure.” The NZ Listener called it “an exuberant debut novel.” It was shortlisted for Best First Book in the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize.
Whiti Hereaka (Ngāti Tuwharetoa, Te Arawa) won the Jan Medlicott Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize — the top fiction prize at the Ockham NZ Book Awards, worth $60,000 — for Kurangaituku in 2022. She is now one of NZ’s most significant Māori novelists. This is where it started.
Why We Stock It:
A debut from a Māori writer who went on to win NZ’s most valuable fiction prize. Published by Huia. Endorsed by Renee. Shortlisted internationally. Out of print in original paperback. The kind of first novel that readers track down once they have discovered what the author became.
![Back cover of No Rest for the Weary displaying white typewriter-style text against a dark forested background. The synopsis describes a disgraced former agent drawn back into CIA intrigues after his mentor’s violent death, balancing family safety with ruthless conspirators. A small author photo and bio sits above the publisher barcode at the bottom right. [ Secondhand copy available at TheGravy.nz]](https://shop.thegravy.nz/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/No-Rest-for-the-Weary-Nicholas-Brookland-The-Gravy-bookshop-2-300x450.jpg)
![Front cover of No Rest for the Weary by Nicholas Brookland showing a weathered map of Vietnam tinted green and blue, overlaid with a red circular “Central Intelligence Agency” seal and a compass rose. The bold white title sits at the bottom, with the subtitle “A twisting tale of real-world justice and bone-crunching vengeance” in red beneath. [ Secondhand copy available at TheGravy.nz]](https://shop.thegravy.nz/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/No-Rest-for-the-Weary-Nicholas-Brookland-The-Gravy-bookshop-1-300x450.jpg)
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.