European misrepresentation that Australia’s first peoples were nomadic hunter gatherers has persisted since the continent was first invaded and still persists to a large extent today to justify invasion. However, Pasco examines not only the diaries of many early European explorers who ventured inland, but also archeological sites that confirm that Australian Aborigines not only had permanent settlements often built of stone, but constructed weirs for trapping fish, cultivated grasslands to harvest seeds for flour and tubers, utilized bush burning to replenish these native foods, dug numerous wells and had a democratic system that meant the country before European invasion had never experienced wars.
At the death of Elizabeth’s father, she and her mother move in with her grandfather. And while Elizabeth’s mother doesn’t care for her daughter, her grandfather dotes on her and teaches her all he knows about farming and sheep. After her mother remarries and abandons her daughter, Elizabeth is taken in by her best friend, Bridie’s parents. They are close friends until Elizabeth makes the biggest mistake that will change her life forever.
I remember Mary as the Bennett sister who couldn’t sing, but twenty years on from the end of Austin’s Pride and Prejudice, Mary’s life continues. In her desperation for independence, she investigates the plight of the English poor only to find herself in danger.
I wasn’t expecting this to be an engaging tale, but I should have known better because this Australian author has never disappointed me—a book I couldn’t put down when I needed a light read.
When Theo, a Nigerian art historian, removes a painting of a horse from a discarded pile of junk a neighbour has dumped in her front yard, he is unaware of its connection to a Kentucky slave from the 1800s. He takes the painting covered in soot to a restorer where he meets a Smithsonian scientist, Jess who has been studying the bones of the horse she believes is the same one in the painting. Jarret is a slave in the 1850s with a knack with horses. He forms a close bond with a foal after its birth and grooms the horse to race on the insistence of his master, Dr. Warfield.
What happens to Theo and the painting he has restored? And why did the bones of a horse from more than a hundred years ago end up in storage in a neglected section of Washington’s Smithsonian Museum?
What makes this book an even better read is the author’s meticulous research into many of her real characters and the events that actually happened back in the 1800s.
Read and Write 
You must be logged in to post a comment.