Amanda Dick books in order

Three years ago, Danny Morris left behind a gun, a tonne of questions and a gaping hole in the lives of those who loved him. What he didn’t leave was a suicide note.

On the anniversary of his death, his closest friends gather at his parents’ beach house in New Zealand's idyllic Marlborough Sounds. Each of them is struggling with Danny’s absence in different ways. One of them is keeping a secret that will change everything.

Three years ago, a single bullet ricocheted through all of them. But instead of time easing the pain, it has created a new set of problems. How do you leave the past behind when it's right in front of you?

Five years ago, Emily McGovern decided to walk home from a party - and disappeared into thin air. While Emily became one of New Zealand’s 350+ official missing persons, her boyfriend Heath Danes was branded as ‘the one left behind’.

As their friends and family steadfastly move on with their lives, Heath exists in limbo, waiting for something which may never happen. Only when he’s surfing does he find the peace he craves.

When new girl Maia arrives in the small seaside town, she sets in motion a chain of events that nobody could’ve anticipated. With a startling resemblance to Emily, Heath predictably finds Maia impossible to ignore. But that’s where predictability ends. Maia has a past – and her past will change everything.

It’s 22 February 2011 and the city of Christchurch, New Zealand is bustling. Sian Bennett and her baby son are window-shopping, waiting patiently to join her husband for lunch after his business meeting.

Then the ground begins to shake and the life she had is gone. Buried beneath the rubble in the aftermath of the 6.3 magnitude earthquake, Sian survives - barely - but her husband and son do not.

Two years on, struggling with short-term memory loss and crippling social anxiety, Sian retreats to a lakeside cottage in Rotorua. There, among the ghosts of her family, is the only place she feels safe.

When enigmatic American soldier Luke Lancaster moves into the derelict cottage beyond the trees, he respects his reclusive neighbor's silent plea for privacy. Wrestling with ghosts of his own, he keeps himself busy by renovating his cottage and staying out of her way.

Two strangers from opposite sides of the world. One secret that will either bind them together or tear them apart.

How far would you go to hold on to the ones you love?

December 1997, Navigator Bay, New Zealand. Eight-year-old Eli Lake has a strong moral compass and a rebellious heart. When he is honour-bound to defend his younger sister Becca by punching the school bully in the playground, he doesn’t stop to think about the consequences.

Unfortunately the headmaster doesn’t seem to understand that Eli is no snitch. While waiting outside the headmaster’s office as the school calls his mother, Eli makes a split-second decision to run.

Nanna is the one person he can rely on for help but while passing the cemetery on his way to Nanna’s house, he spies a girl in a white dress placing wildflowers on headstones. In a single heartbeat, a day that began as ordinary is destined to end in tragedy.

How can you forgive when you can’t forget?

After a car accident four years earlier, a distraught Jack McKenna chose to disappear rather than face the consequences of what happened that night. Living on the edge of society, he finds it harder and harder to look in the mirror and see the man he has become.

Artist Ally Connor can never forget that night or the fact that Jack left her to deal with a broken body and a broken heart. Strong, independent and resilient, she rebuilt her life in Jack's absence, with help from her friends and Jack's father Tom.

But when Tom dies suddenly, Jack knows he must return home for the funeral and face everyone he left behind - including Ally.

Desperate to make amends Jack promises he's back for good this time but broken hearts, broken bodies and broken trust can't always be fixed.

Can Ally grant Jack the second chance he knows he doesn’t deserve?

Keeping secrets is never easy but full disclosure means they run the risk of losing everything all over again. Will the truth reunite them or tear them apart forever?

Callum Ferguson grew up in the shadow of the sins of his father. Alcoholism and violence are in the genes and as much as he tries to escape it, it stares back at him every time he looks in the mirror.

Sass Hathaway thrived in the limelight until one night she lost it all. With her career as a musician over, it takes her brother to rescue her from herself. His idea of salvation; a dilapidated bar, far from the bright lights and big city.

When their paths inevitably cross, neither of them are prepared for the effect they have on each other. Suddenly, for the first time, the future seems promising.

Then the past rears its ugly head.

If you’ve spent so long fighting to hang on, what will it take to make you let go?

Jack McKenna fell in love with Ally Connor the first time he saw her. All through high school and beyond, it was the two of them against the world even though level-headed, pragmatic Jack and artistic, impulsive Ally couldn’t have been more different. Their future was mapped out until one night, driving home from a concert with their best friend, their world came crashing down.

Consumed by guilt, Jack walks away from everything and everyone. What follows is four years of living in the shadows, sliding further and further into the darkness until he finds himself doing things he never thought he was capable of. And then a phone call turns his world upside down a second time. Hours later, he’s heading back to the place where the nightmares began. The homecoming, a funeral and the journey of self-discovery will test the limits of his endurance, risking his very soul in the process.

Does he even deserve a second chance?