The Leonard Girls, 2022

In 1969, at the height of the Vietnam war, nurse Rowie Leonard is serving a 12-month tour of duty. She supports the war and is committed to caring for wounded New Zealand and Australian troops. After a few months, however, she realises that nothing at all about the conflict is as clear-cut as she'd assumed. 

Her younger sister, Jo, is the opposite – a student at Auckland University, a folk singer and a fervent anti-war protestor. But when Jo falls for professional soldier Sam Apanui, home on leave to visit his ill father, she finds herself torn between her feelings and her convictions.  

As the three of them grapple with love, loss, and the stresses and sorrows of war, each will be forced to confront and question everything they believed. 

This is the fourth and last book in The Restless Years series, and probably the most ‘modern’ book I’ll write. For me, I’m not sure an era is historical if I can remember it, and I can definitely remember the latter sixties because I was ten in 1969. I wanted to write this one, though, because of the Vietnam war, the subject of my two non-fiction books. 

I especially wanted to look at what it might have been like for New Zealand troops to fight an unpopular war, both from the perspective of encountering protest at home in New Zealand on a national and sometimes even a family level, and also not always feeling particularly welcomed by the ‘friendly’ civilian population in South Vietnam. Plus, the music from the sixties was fantastic.    

'Challinor finds and verifies not just dates and places, but architecture, cuisine, song titles, calling cards, even lingerie...The Leonard Girls lets you watch a professional using the tools, trusting the reader, warming to her own stuff, trying something on the edge of her own comfort zone - in this case, the intricacies of a "big, loving" Maori whanau.' 

David Hill, newsroom.co.nz/readingroom