A historica novel set in the 1880s on New Zealand's wild West Coast. I believe the opening quotation was written by one of my forebears.

I've read a few reviews of this book from other bookcrossing members recently so when I saw it on the table at the Meetngreet at the Wellington convention I had to pick it up.

Ok, so I was a bit put off this book right from the start by the preface, in which the author claims "Denniston is a real coal-mining town, now deserted..." Last time I was in Denniston it was far from deserted, with several families still living there (in fact, when I lived in Westport I used to teach a couple of Denniston kids). That bad start made me doubt the level of research that went into the rest of the book.

But overall, it was an ok book. I find Jenny Patrick's writing a bit jerky, with her random changes of tense (she switches narrative present for some chapters for no apparent reason), but she creates interesting characters, and a good story. And so much less pretentious than 99% of the literary output of this country - no wonder this was a best-seller, at last a NZ novel that you don't feel like you need a degree in English to read!

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RELEASE NOTES:

Left on a table in the waiting area.