Three and a half stars but bumped up to a four as I never lost interest. It is a saga set in Australia in the last two decades of the 19th century. It is a fictional family drama which conveys quite a bit of the history of early white settlement in the Melbourne area of Australia. Sheep farming is gone into in some detail. Aborigine beliefs and customs hold a large place in the book. I thought it was interesting and worth my time and effort to read. Sometimes it felt like it was too long, other times it felt like people, places and ideas were left unfinished. Still, overall, it was pretty good.