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Sarah Thornhill (2011)

by Kate Grenville(Favorite Author)

3.73 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1921758627 (ISBN13: 9781921758621)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Penguin

series

Thornhill Family

review 1: Set in the 1820's along the Hawkesbury River, Wiseman's Ferry and inland. Loved Sarah's voice, her will power and growing maturity. Her history involves atrocities against the Aborigines to get land and rise above family status. A tough pioneer life, tough characters that includes New Zealand, the wealth making opportunities offered with sealing and whaling as well as the Maori traditions. The ending was sudden compared to the flow of the rest of the novel- a weakness for me. I read the first book, Secret River, and enjoyed how the story of land grab was handled.
review 2: 3.5 for this one, rounded up to 4. I'm a huge fan of Grenville, for me she is easily one of the best Australian novelists writing today. Lillian's Story and Dark Places are among the best Aus... moretralian fiction I have ever read. Grenville makes it seem effortless. I loved the journey that this book took me on, having already read The Secret River and The Lieutenant (the other books in this trilogy)the reader picks up the story in the post-colonial Hawkebury that is being populated by emancipists and free settlers, driving out the Aboriginals from their native land. Sarah Thornhill is a good solid protagonist, incredibly believable. Her love story with Jack is quite beautiful, and quickly drew me in, I really wanted everything to work out for them. I don't want write a spoiler but the ending of the book was disappointing in more ways than one. It felt like a too-convenient, swift conclusion. The other thing that annoyed me was the apologetic and didatic tone adopted when talking about the native people. I felt that the shit Grenville copped after writing The Secret River effected the manner in which she addressed her Aboriginal characters- it was really self-conscious and cautious. Grenville should not have listened to those critics, she is a fiction writer, not a historian. Sarah Thornhill, and the whole trilogy, are well worth reading if you like historical literature. less

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