J.P. Pomare Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Author J. P. Pomare, first name Josh, grew up in a tiny New Zealand town on a horse-racing farm with his sister, two brothers, two border collies, and two cats. When he was eleven years old, his mother died from cancer, and he left home when he was only fifteen years old. He has always been pulled to the darkness.

His family loves stories but they were not big readers. Pomare’s father in particular loves a good yarn. When the whole family gets together, endless stories come on out. The whole thing is more oral storytelling. If there is anything that he got from his dad and siblings, it was most likely that.

Eventually, Pomare would leave Rotorua and go to Melbourne, Australia. Before moving to Melbourne, he dropped out of getting his BA degree in Wellington. It is here he lives with his wife, as well as spending time in Clunes. He has hosted and produced a podcast, interviewing guests like Dorthe Nors, E. Lockhart, Joyce Carol Oates, and John Safran.

He has worked in the field of marketing but during the evenings he wrote, contributing to different Australian publications before starting to work on what would later become “Call Me Evie”.

During school, he preferred math to English until he began his final year. He was an admirer of authors like Haruki Murakami and Cormac McCarthy and began finding his own voice by deconstructing other writers’. He rewrote those stories, only being able to see the mechanics of a story, and he would change different things about them.

The novel represents his first successful attempt at penning a novel, after years of practice attempts, a lost manuscript, and aborted attempts. The manuscript he lost had more of a young-adult feel to it, but the story vanished as a result of a computer meltdown. It devastated Pomare for a total of three days before he bounced back.

Right around this time, Pomare began coming up with some ideas for what would become “Call Me Evie”. The atmospheric setting of Maketu was bouncing around his subconscious, and he read a book that opened his eyes right up to some new possibilities. It was called “All the Birds, Singing” by Evie Wyld. The longer literary tales Pomare was used to, but Wyld’s far shorter story was something of an inspiration. He devoured all of it in just a few hours, all while he admired all that it had going on, structurally speaking.

Pomare was inspired by her backwards-and-forwards, before-and-after narratives. He took pieces of that book and some of her own heritage and background he was looking to write about, then fused them both together.

During the editing and rewriting process, everything “All the Birds, Singing” related fell away from his story. He was able to learn how to pen a novel this way, learning about structure, what was necessary, and about how to plot his novel. He was able to learn a lot by putting everything in it before throwing it out slowly and replacing it with more of him and his history as well as what he really wanted to write about.

To get into Kate/Evie’s mind better, he talked to his wife to understand more about what it was like to be a teenaged girl. Parts of her character, world views, trepidations, anxieties, and fears came from Pomare, but there were certain things he was unable to experience. He also talked with friends and editors to be sure it was all authentic.

There were also things he was able to experience, like shaving his head, allowing him to know what the wind or a shower would feel like on your scalp. Which there is no other feeling quite like. He did things like trying on tights and shaved his legs, which are odd things. Other things he just observed, and part of it is just about empathy.

His first love for literary fiction quickly became a taste for fast paced, sharp story telling. Tales that tied a cold knot right in the pit of his stomach, and surprised him.

Pomare’s work has been published in journals that include Kill Your Darlings, The NZ Listener, Meanjin, TLB review of books. He has been shortlisted for or won many prizes. These include the Sheila Malady Prize, the KYD Unpublished Manuscript Award, The Kingi McKinnon Scholarship for Emerging Writers, and Ellen Kemp Memorial Writer’s Prize.

“Call Me Evie” is his first novel, and was released in the year 2019. It is from the genres of crime, thriller, and mystery.

“Call Me Evie” is the first stand alone novel, which was released in the year 2019. For the past two weeks, Kate Bennet, seventeen years old, has been living against her will in a remote cabin on an isolated beach town. She was brought her by a mysterious guy called Bill.

The guy is part benefactor, part abductor, he calls her Evie and tells her that he is hiding her so that he can protect her. She did something awful one night back in Melbourne, her home, it was something so terrible that he had no other choice but to take her away. Problem is, Kate is unable to remember this night.

The pieces of Kate’s shattered memories from her former life all appear happy: a large house in the suburbs, some good friends, a boyfriend that was devoted. Bill tells her he will help fill the blanks in, but his story never adds up. She tries to reconcile the girl she believed she was with the rather devastating consequences Bill says she is responsible for. She is going to uncover secrets both about herself and those that are closest to her that might change everything.

This is a haunting, propulsive, and twist-filled psychological suspense book, and is sure to keep the reader guessing until the very last page. Pomare has delivered a riveting debut that fearlessly plumbs the darkest nooks of the mind. It explores memory’s fragility and the potential we all have inside of his to keep the truth hidden, even from ourselves. Pomare created characters are perfectly fleshed out.