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| Hodder&Stoughton 2015 |
After being arrested for a petty
crime, teenager Mary Jebb is sentenced to seven years transportation to the
penal colony in Botany Bay. On the surface, she is repentant of her crime, but
fearing her disappearance and determined never to be forgotten, she inscribes these
words on two silver pennies, which will have repercussions for years to come
and which seals the fate of three very different people.
Though chains hold me fast,
As the years pass away,
I swear on this heart
To find you one day
Sweeping across a haunting and
brooding landscape, this complex and beautifully written historical crime novel
uncovers a myriad of secrets and tells of lives irrevocably linked together by
the powerful need for revenge. The story moves along quite quickly, and the
introduction of the other cast of characters is done with a subtle hand. The
story of Grace Moore and her ill-fated entanglement with Michael Croxon is
cleverly controlled, and the introduction of Peg Blissett, as their housekeeper, into the ménage, is filled with both a sense of Gothic gloom, and melodramatic
intrigue.
The mystery, at the heart of the
novel is complex and convoluted , dark and deliciously dirty in places and just so wonderfully
contrived and maintained that I really was kept guessing throughout the whole
of the story. To say more would be to spoil the effect, but the dénouement
which it comes is entirely appropriate and left me shrieking with approval.
There is no doubt that this
talented author does an excellent job of bringing eighteenth century history
and culture alive in such a totally
believable way, that by the end of the story you really are on the edge of your seat begging for more.
~***~
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