In Aue eight-year-old Arama was taken by his brother, Taukiri, to live with Kat and Stu at the farm in Kaikoura, setting in train the tragedy that unfolded. Arama's aunty Kat was at the centre of events, but silenced by abuse her voice was absent from the story.
In Kataraina, Kat and her whanau take over the telling. As one, they return to her childhood and the time when she first began to feel the greenness of the swamp in her veins - the swamp that holds her tears and the tears of her tipuna, the swamp on the land owned by Stu that has been growing since the girl shot the man.
Becky Manawatu's new novel is the much-awaited sequel to award-winning bestseller Aue and is unflinching in its portrayal of the destructive ways people love one another and the ancestral whenua on which they stand.