Rotoroa Island in the Hauraki Gulf, tiny and isolated, is home to a Salvation Army facility for alcoholic men. It's also where three people at very different points in their lives share a fleeting encounter. There is Katherine, known to history as Elsie K. Morton, famous journalist and author; Jim, an alcoholic with a young family; and Lorna, a teenage mother who has turned to religion, looking for a fresh start. As the stories of their lives are revealed, so too are their hopes and vulner...

Christchurch, post quakes, and the earth is still settling. Containers line the damaged streets, whose inhabitants waver – like their city – suspended between disaster and recovery. Tony, very much alive, is declared dead, Gerald misreads one too many situations in his community patrol, and boomer Carla tries online dating. At the epicentre of these taut, magnetic stories is twenty-something Flick who, just as she is finding her feet again, faces another violent disruption – this time in h...