Nissa loves the NZ bush and considering she isn’t quite 13, has spent a lot of time in it. Her dad and brother love to hunt deer, both proud of the antlers back home on the wall. When Nissa is looking down the barrel of a powerful rifle at a beautiful stag, she thinks differently.

There is something she’d like to hunt though, although she has no idea what it actually is. Ever since she was 5 yrs old, Nissa has seen strange lights in the bush. They move around easily in the air but retreat if she tries to move closer. At that age her talk of fairies is put down to imagination. As she ages however, after being teased by her brother’s friend, Tama, she learns to keep her sightings to herself.

When a chance to explore a possible hiding place for these lighted creatures presents itself, Nissa grabs it. It is the 2nd day of a school camp called Deep Cove. It is deep in the Fiordland bush and her class is on the Hanging Valley trek when she sees another light. This light seems to be beckoning to her, wanting her to follow. With her compass, snacks, and other tramping supplies in her backpack she convinces herself she can find her way back to the Deep Cove Hostel before she is missed. She knows bad weather is coming, but when it hits she realises her terrible mistake.

Nissa will soon learn what the lights really are. She will learn more about the bush and all the creatures in it than she has learnt in the last 12 years, including medicinal secrets and edible delicacies. The bush of Fiordland is ancient and so are some of its flora and fauna, but there is danger coming and it is growing.

Meanwhile, a huge search has been set up looking for Nissa. Hope for her safety dwindles by the day, but some will never give up.

Nissa only remembers today, her family and friends forgotten. She is part of the forest now….

Spark Hunter is a riveting story of an imaginative world of ancient creatures woven into the real world of the impenetrable, beautiful and extremely dangerous Fiordland bush.

Told in three parts – Tahi, Rua and Toru, all are set in 2020 as main character Nissa researches, plans and finds the strange creatures that have intrigued her, her whole life.

This truly kiwi story is set deep in Fiordland where many experienced explorers have mysteriously vanished since 1773. This historical context is added by including actual letters and diary entries, and a preceding fictional chapter to each of the three sections of the book.

As Nissa is plunged into another world, the real world outside is desperately searching for her, portrayed in emails, texts, and news reports throughout the story.

Never venturing far past bush trails and tracks myself, the multilayered details of the towering trees, giant ferns and lush green mosses of the undergrowth came alive on the page. The rituals, language and quirks of the ‘lights’ were original and interesting even as they were woven into the very nature of the NZ Bush. Now I know why Keas take windscreen wiper blades and rubber from windscreens, not to mention a wonderful secret about the mighty Moa!

Spark Hunter is fast moving, imaginative, and informative, leaving the reader with the possibility of more from Nissa.

Author – Sonya Wilson

Age – 8+

WINNER – NZ SOCIETY OF AUTHORS BEST FIRST BOOK AWARD – NZ Children’s & Young Adult Book Awards 2022

(2021, AHOY, The Cuba Press, NZ, New Zealand, Aotearoa, South Island, Explorers, Moose, Flora and Fauna, Fiordland, Gone Missing, Vanished without a trace, Lights leading trampers astray, Quintin McKinnon, Johann Forster, Pukutahi, Historical figures, Search, Secret)