Long-listed for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award (for The Axeman’s Carnival and Pet)
Long-listed for the 2024 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards (for Pet)
Nominated for the Women’s Prize (for Remote Sympathy)
Short-listed for the Dublin Literary Award (for Remote Sympathy)
A Best Book from New Zealand Since 2000 — Radio New Zealand
“Funny, dark, insightful and unique, this beautifully written novel is a story and a magpie you will NEVER forget.”—Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things
“I didn’t think it was possible to fall in love with a magpie, but from the opening chapter, which is a masterclass in prose, to the final scene, I was spellbound by the foul-mouthed, wisecracking Tama and his quest to save gentle Marnie from unspeakable violence. Another tour de force from Catherine Chidgey.”—Karen Powell, author of Fifteen Wild Decembers
“The Axeman’s Carnival is both tense and disconcertingly charming. The story is filled with delightful moments but tightens with frightening inevitability to a shocking conclusion.”—Lulu Allison, author of Salt Lick
“Thrilling, beautifully rendered and pitch perfect.”—Kirsty Gunn, New Zealand Newsroom
“Chidgey elegantly weaves together social commentary, magic realism, folklore and myth, and her treatment of serious themes is deft.”—Irish Times
“Told in the voice of a magpie, with humor and wisdom, this unflinching portrait of nature picks at the thin veil between the elemental violence and drama of both human and animal worlds.”—Shelf Awareness
“The Axeman’s Carnival is a stunning and captivating story about the pressures of farming life and the meaning of family, and Chidgey is at the absolute top of her game.”—Booklist
“The Axeman's Carnival has already landed on bestseller charts and awards lists in New Zealand and Ireland, and it’s finally making its U.S. debut in a sharp-looking paperback edition on Aug. 13.”—Seattle Times
“Questions of knowing and refusing to know, seeing but not believing, scratch at us in Chidgey’s pages. Perhaps never more effectively — or entertainingly — than in The Axeman’s Carnival.”—Financial Times
“The Axeman’s Carnival is remarkable, brilliant, a classic in the making.”—Rachael King, Newsroom
“One of our very best novelists knocks it out of the park.”—New Zealand Herald (Book of the Year)
“Two uncanny creatures, not quite wild and not quite tame, circling one another in an increasingly claustrophobic house. Both waiting for the axe to drop.”—The Conversation US
“Chidgey’s writing is masterful, and the underlying sense of dread as the story unfolds is shot through with humour and humanity. The Axeman’s Carnival is unique: poetic, profound and a powerfully compelling read from start to finish.”—Judges’ comments, Ockham NZ Book Awards 2023
“Already an international bestseller, this novel hits American shores this August. It's about a talking bird who changes the course of a farmer and his wife's lives. Amazon reviews claim that the final chapters had them shook, so buckle up!”—Cosmopolitan
Praise for Pet
“A lingering, haunting book...a landmark in the small but potent canon of contemporary novels about unusual girls reckoning with themselves and the world around them.”—Ruth Franklin, The New York Times
“In this suspenseful bildungsroman, Justine, a Catholic schoolgirl living in New Zealand...revisits the mysteries of her youth.”—The New Yorker
“Full of delicious mystery and thrill, Pet showcases manipulation and the unthinkable things people will do when their life and reputation are on the line.”—Meredith Boe, Chicago Review of Books
“The elusive nature of truth is also at the heart of New Zealand author Catherine Chidgey’s latest psychological thriller...In this novel, the reader is like the frog in a pot of gradually heating water: we don’t realize the danger we’re in until it’s far too late.”—Toronto Star
“[Chidgey] writes Pet with a deft hand...She fills the story with just enough references to Holly Hobbie bedsheets and Duran Duran to coat this Gen X reader’s cold heart in a cozy wrap of nostalgia.”—Kelly Roark, New City Lit
★ “This dark novel probes the power of deception, betrayal, religion, and childhood in every twist of its mesmerizing plot. Lovers of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Donna Tartt's The Secret History will want to read this compelling novel by an award-winning New Zealand author.”—Booklist (starred)
“Chidgey satisfies and horrifies in equal measure.”—Publishers Weekly
“The tension rises, page by page...Chidgey maintains momentum, her narrative hooking the reader’s attention. It should make one hell of a movie.”—The Sydney Morning Herald
“Horrifically compelling.”—Christopher Schobert, The Film Stage
“As satisfying a narrative as Pet is, lingering uncertainty is the source of its real power, enabling it to maintain its hold over the imagination long after the final page has been turned.”—Hephzibah Anderson, The Observer
“An excellent meditation on the fallibility of memory, the haunting of the past, and the depth with which childhood impresses upon adulthood. Pet is an accomplished, hugely engaging novel with an impressive ability to compel the reader forward with elegance, verve and style.”—Helen Cullen, The Irish Times
“With precision and economy, Chidgey captures the cruelty of pubescents, as well as the casual racism and misogyny of the time….an absorbing page-turner.”—Stephanie Cross, Daily Mail
“Outside of New Zealand, Chidgey is not as well known as she should be. One hopes that this chilling tale of childhood vulnerability and violence might change that.”—Lucy Scholes, Financial Times
“Damn this book is good. Pet is at once a brilliant coming-of-age thriller and a sharp dissection of racism and misogyny in 1980s [New Zealand].”—Molly Odintz, CrimeReads, “The Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of Summer 2023”
“Chidgey’s grasp of the slipperiness and self-delusion of memory...is faultless.”—Catherine Taylor, The Guardian
“A revelation in slow suspense and character study...it will resonate with fans of psychological thrillers and dark academia.”—Julie Kane, Library Journal
“A unique plot provides a dark undercurrent in this unassuming and well-paced drama: another excellent and admirable story from this talented author.”—Rhianon Holley, Buzz
“This is a captivating and often unsettling read….a literary novel with not only nuanced characterisation, vivid descriptions, pitch-perfect dialogue and artful language but also a dramatic story with a propulsive narrative momentum.”—Sue Reidy, New Zealand Review of Books
“Pet is a page-turning psychological thriller: tense, uncomfortable and completely gripping.”—The New Zealand Herald
“What unfolds is a thriller that compels not because anything especially ridiculous happens, but because it all feels hauntingly close to home...Chidgey has proven, again and again, that she writes thrillers with the best of them. She does something different, and threads an admirably thin tightrope.”—Sam Brooks, The Spinoff
“The extraordinary Catherine Chidgey is back...At its heart, Pet is a story about the temptations of charismatic and attractive characters who can take advantage of weakness and vulnerability.”—New Zealand Newsroom
“A very creepy character study, brimming with nostalgia and a sense of menace.”—Best
“Catherine Chidgey in Pet mobilises the misgivings shared by all children who love and lose: the fear of being odd, the longing to be special, the horror of being supplanted. This is a novel hard not to swallow [entirely] in one go, by when the reader will be full of hooks and wary as an old pike.”—Candia McWilliam, author of What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir of Blindness
“A dark and compelling story of guilt and betrayal. Add to it a near-perfect plot twist and you have a novel that lives long in the mind.”—Alex Preston, author of Winchelsea
“Refreshing, compelling, and surprising, this novel skirts around familiar tropes to deliver something new and troubling. Sharp writing, keen observations, and killer wit.”—Ann Morgan, author of Crossing Over
“A remarkable and original writer, whose novels have the golden combination of being both riveting and superbly written.”—Lissa Evans, author of V for Victory
Praise for Catherine Chidgey
“Chidgey is a find.”—Times Literary Supplement
“A writer of formidable resources, a deft stylist possessed of uncanny imaginative acuity.”—The Guardian
Praise for Remote Sympathy
“Highly original and deeply researched, Catherine Chidgey’s Remote Sympathy is a powerful and disturbing study in terrible lies and the human need to believe them... Few readers will close the covers of this book unshaken.”―Annie Proulx, author of Barkskins
★ “With its multiple registers and complex view of humanity, Remote Sympathy marks a vital turn in Holocaust literature.”—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
“Catherine Chidgey’s second novel to be set in Nazi Germany is about how much people are able to overlook—and in doing so, perpetuate evil [ . . . ] surely one of the scariest books of the year.”—Elena Nicolaou, O, The Oprah Magazine, Most Anticipated Historical Fiction of 2021
“‘Simply being’ is a major achievement for two of the three central characters in Catherine Chidgey’s powerful new novel, which is set on both sides of the barbed wire barriers at Buchenwald.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A well-researched addition [to] Holocaust fiction.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Immersive, profound, and beautifully plotted.”―The Guardian
“Are there new ways to tell stories of the Holocaust that are neither crass nor exploitative? In this moving and unusual novel, the New Zealand writer Catherine Chidgey shows that there are. Her novel is a fine achievement.”—The Sunday Times, Best Historical Fiction of the Month
“An insightful account of human nature set against the chaos of war. It is a moving examination of the human condition and well worth serious attention.”—Historical Novels Society
“The writing is beautifully wrought and the research a result of years of study. The novelist illustrates the senseless cruelty of the regime and portrays its characters convincingly, not as monsters but deluded, indulged and frightened victims of their own stupidity.”—The Jewish Chronicle