Na Viro

Appearing before the head of the Academy for fighting at her graduation ceremony, puffer ship navigatorTia Grom-Eddy must either join the crew of a spaceship on a deep space mission or complete a lengthy probationary period on Earth. Mortally afraid of travelling into deep space, Tia chooses probation.Estranged from her parents, Tia is bereft when her sister, Leilani, joins the crew of a puffer fish spaceship sent to investigate a whirlpool in deep space. And when the cosmic whirlpool sucks Leilani's shuttle into its grip, Tia must overcome her fear of space travel and find a way to work with her mother, who is leading therescue, or risk losing her sister forever.

Gina Cole is a writer with a Doctorate in Creative Writing from Massey Universityand a Master of Creative Writing from the University of Auckland. Her collectionof short stories, Black Ice Matter, won the Hubert Church Prize for Best FirstBook Fiction in the Ockham Book Awards 2017. She received a Pasifika WritersResidency from the Michael King Writers Centre in 2021, a university of IowaResidency in the International Writing Program in 2018 and was HonoraryFellow in Writing at the University of Iowa in the same year.