I love historical fiction, and this is one is no different. It is a really good book on so many levels. The writing is great and the story is too, shining a light on many major issues of the time. It particularly highlights the roles of women within society in the late Victorian era and also the views of white men towards their aboriginal counterparts in Australia. One of the reasons I love historical fiction is for the obvious reason you learn about life in previous times but historical fiction also makes you sit back and reflect on how so often very little has changed, and this book does this perfectly. It highlights the very current concerns about the racial inequities in play across the World. This really is a great thought-provoking read.
This book is the story of two sisters in the 1890s who travel from London to Australia. Sarah moves to Australia with her husband Henry and they eventually end up moving to the Northern Territory to run a cattle station on a six-month contract. Her sister Harriet eventually joins them following the death of their father. Harriet finds herself lost and grieving after the death of her father but begins to find herself again in the outback of Australia forming an unlikely friendship with an Aboriginal stockman who helps her to learn to love the landscape and find her passion for drawing again. But sadly any happiness is short lived as murders take place at a nearby cattle station and revenge is soon sought.
A tale of two very different sisters whose 1890s voyage from London into remote outback Australia becomes a journey of self-discovery, set against a landscape of wild beauty and savage dispossession. London in 1891: Harriet Cameron is a talented young artist whose mother died when she was barely five. She and her beloved sister Sarah were brought up by their father, radical thinker James Cameron. After adventurer Henry Vincent arrives on the scene, the sisters' lives are changed forever. Sarah, the beauty of the family, marries Henry and embarks on a voyage to Australia. Harriet, intensely missing Sarah, must decide whether to help her father with his life's work or to devote herself to painting. When James Cameron dies unexpectedly, Harriet is overwhelmed by grief. Seeking distraction, she follows Sarah to Australia, and afterwards into the outback, where she is alienated by the casual violence and great injustices of outback life. Her rejuvenation begins with her friendship with an Aboriginal stockman and her growing love for the landscape. But this fragile happiness is soon threatened by murders at a nearby cattle station and by a menacing station hand who is seeking revenge.
Alison Booth was born in born in Melbourne, brought up in Sydney and worked for many years in the UK. She is author of The Jingera Trilogy the first of which, Stillwater Creek, was Highly Commended in the 2011 ACT Book of the Year Award, and was also published in French (two editions) and in Reader's Digest Select Editions in Asia and in Europe. Her subsequent novels were The Indigo Sky and A Distant Land. www.alisonbooth.net
