Ms Carey, who is also a TV producer/director and documentary maker, last year released The Hollows Boys: A Story of Three Brothers & the Fiordland Deer Recovery Era (Potton & Burton) which has just been shortlisted for the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards - New Zealand’s top literary honour - in the general non-fiction category.
Other finalists in the category are former prime minister Dame Jacinda Ardern’s memoir A Different Kind of Power, journalist and natural history writer Naomi Arnold’s Northbound: Four Seasons of Solitude on Te Araroa, and This Compulsion in Us, written by novelist, essayist, short story writer and creative writing teacher Tina Makareti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā).
Ms Carey said she had joked she would ‘‘eat my hat if I make the shortlist’’.
‘‘Now I’m like, can I postpone that till if I win?’’
The Hollows Boys, now on its fourth print run, tells the story of the helicopter deer recovery era in Fiordland through the lives of three brothers Gary, Mark and Kim Hollows.
Mark was piloting a chopper in September, 1989, in which Gary was the shooter - following an incident on the top of the Cameron Mountains, Gary was killed.
Mark stayed with his body, and a wrecked chopper, for more than seven hours, during which time he used all his ammunition to keep kea away from Gary before they were found.
Ms Carey said she had ‘‘no idea’’ what the Hollows boys would make of the honour, but she was grateful to them for ‘‘trusting me from the start’’.
The winner will be announced on May 17.
