Friday, April 10, 2015

Friday Books: The Secret River

The Secret River by Kate Grenville is a great book, from the first word to the last. It is well written with beautiful language. The story is a grabber, too. It's historical fiction about the early days in Australia, when the first white people were arriving, many of them convicts, and begin settling in an already-occupied land. You know there is inevitable conflict with the native people in this story, and some conflict also within the daily lives of the settlers themselves. (Inevitable only because we already know it happened. It didn't have to happen the way it did, but our hindsight makes it inevitable.)

I learned a lot about how convicts fared in those early days, something I had given surprisingly little thought to until I read this book. I'm very happy I found and read this book. It's an excellent one.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your image caught my eye. What a perfect phrase to describe why it can be tough for some to start another book too soon after finishing a really good on! Book Hangover . . . I love it!

Betty said...

Hi Carol,
This is one of my favourite books. Sal was an amazing character who was loving, supportive, but also strong-willed. I loved the relationship of Sal and Will as they faced so much hardship and danger.
Perfect novel in my opinion!
I also read "Searching for The Secret River":- the story behind the book. Sometimes it was tedious but interesting to see how the author researched her novel.
Thanks for your blog!
Betty

Carol E. said...

Betty, thanks for the tip. I'll have to look for "Searching for the Secret River." Sounds interesting.