Alois Hartmann was cursing his father's incredible view, not to pass the farmstead over to him, the second born. Hand over head he left embittered and angry, together with his young wife Judith, the home valley in Switzerland and immigrated to New Zealand. He vowed loudly that he would show them all, who knew best about livestock and crop cultivation.
The land at Taranaki was fertile and the Hartmann-Station became with the years an impressive property. But it demanded everything, hard work and solitude. Judith felt robbed of all her dreams and illusions. On Christmas Eve 1953 she set off to visit her only friend at Auckland, to find comprehension, comfort and advice. On that Holy Night nobody knew that the train would never reach its final destination, perhaps only the angry Mount Ruapehu...

Shortly before his stay in New Zealand ended, and his first novel PAKEHA (Strangers in Aotearoa) was published, Peter Greminger was captivated by a story about an event that had this country on the far side of the world dramatically shaken. It was therefore only a matter of time for his second novel TANGIWAI (Weeping Waters) to be realised.
Peter Greminger travelled and was working in south-east-Asian countries for most of his life. New Zealand was a new experience for him, thanks to his wife Marlis. With the start of retirement he suddenly had time to look at the world more carefully and put his thoughts on paper. At that time he did not realise that the subject 'New Zealand' was not at the end of his authoring and that he would write another two novels: PAUA (Earshell) and KAHURANGI (Greenstone).