COMP CLOSED | Book Giveaway | The Strength of Old Shale

The Strength of Old shale
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We are very pleased to be giving away two copies of Kirsty Powell’s book, ‘The Strength of Old Shale’, to our GrownUps members.

All you need to do to enter the draw is be a GrownUps member, make sure you’re signed up to our newsletter and fill in your details near the bottom of the page!

The Strength of Old shaleAbout The Strength of Old Shale

The much-anticipated stand-alone sequel to The Strength of Eggshells, a winner of the NZ Booklovers Fiction Award

When the bones of a mother and her child, wrapped in a Shetland lace shawl, are dug up from a forgotten graveyard, two worlds collide.

Ariel is rural tough, raised in the defiant republic that is Whangamōmona. When her childhood nemesis is found decapitated in a sports car beneath the bull bars of Ariels ute, her world implodes. She has no recollection of the accident but now a court trial is looming and rumours are running hot. Ariel seeks refuge back at university in Dunedin where she prefers the company of old gold mining bones to real people.

Isbell is also tough and running from ghosts. She is a whisperer who prefers the company of horses to real people. As a young woman, she has left behind depression times in Shetland and now makes her way from Ballarat, Australia, to the New Zealand goldfields, caring for 54 Cobb and Co coach horses in the hold of the SS India. The year is 1861.

Is there a link between these two worlds wrapped in that old shale?

This is a stand-alone sequel to The Strength of Eggshells, winner of the 2020 NZ Booklovers Award for best adult fiction.

Author Note

‘The first seed for The Strength of Old Shale came from long evenings yarning with my old buddy Wally Dalziel on motorcycle trips to Turkey, Peru and China. His Great Great Grandfather Christopher Dalziel had left Shetland in the 1850’s and along with his cousin had jumped ship to go to the Victorian Gold Fields and then came on to the Tuapeka gold strike in Otago in 1861.

Christopher did well, after 10 years on the goldfield he was able to lease his first 100 acres which is still in Wally’s family 150 years later. Christopher had no contact with his Shetland family for 20 years, still worried about the possibility of being caught and hung as a deserter of the Royal Navy. Serendipity bought me a second story, my neighbours Anne and Harry from South Auckland bought land on the outskirts of Lawrence where the Otago University forensic archeology team discovered and recovered 24 graves, the first deaths on the Tuapeka Goldfields, including the body of a young woman and a newborn child.

The research for this book took me to Otago and to the 1850’s Shetland history, including researching and learning the craft of fine knitted Shetland lace, all the rage at the time of Queen Victoria for wedding veils and stockings. Old Shale is a wave shaped knitting pattern that encircles a classic hap shawl, fine enough to draw through a wedding ring. As with my first book, the lives of real people from history were too memorable to leave out, so both in my modern story which centres around the rural Republic of Whangamomona and my historical rendering of the goldfields of Gabriel’s Gully and Dunston, I have included the historical events and real heroes who were larger than life and impossible to leave out.’

About the Author

Kirsty Powell began her writing career under the guidance and encouragement of Witi Ihimaera, Anne Kennedy, Robert Sullivan and Eleanor Catton at the 2014 MIT Diploma of Creative Writing Course, at that time running in Otara. She went on to complete her Masters at Creative Writing at AUT and her debut novel The Strength of Eggshells was the end result, winning the 2020 NZ Booklovers Award for Best Adult Fiction.

‘What a remarkable first novel. This is such good story telling and great writing … at times confronting, but very real and gritty.’ (Marcus Hobson NZ Booklovers Reviewer). Kirsty’s latest novel The Strength of Old Shale carries on the family saga 20 years later.

Kirsty has also had poems and short stories included in anthologies and is next keen to explore the world of children’s story while concurrently researching the history of her own relative Captain David Rough for another long-form historical project. Captain Rough came to New Zealand with Governor Hobson in 1940, signed Te Tiriti at Panmure as a witness, helped select the site of Auckland CBD and stayed on as the first Harbour Master at the brand new Auckland settlement.

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Terms and conditions

    1. You must be a GrownUps member and receive our newsletter to be eligible to win.
    2. Competition closes on the 11th June 2025, winners will be notified via email by 12th June 2025.
    3. It is your responsibility to ensure you correctly enter a New Zealand postal address where the prize can be sent. GrownUps will not take responsibility for prizes sent to incorrect addresses.
    4. Winners are drawn at random by the GrownUps administration team.
    5. GrownUps employees and family are not eligible to enter.
    6. By entering the giveaway, you approve for GrownUps to use your name on social media as winner of the competition.
    7. One entry per household.
    8. Prize in non transferrable.
    9. You must reside in New Zealand – the prize can only be redeemed within New Zealand.
    10. You must be over 50 years of age to enter, please check your details are correct in your membership dashboard.