This Golden Land (#66) by Barbara Wood is the first book on my list of Australia-related reading since I am going there in the fall. I also happen to like Ms. Wood's take on historical fiction so this new book was a perfect blend of style and subject.
Hannah Conroy is a certified midwife and daughter of the local physician in 1840s England. She accompanies her Quaker father on an emergency call to the local manor where things go terribly wrong. Her father is dead, and there are no prospects for a woman alone to practice medicine, so she decides to emigrate to Australia. On the voyage, she meets Neal Scott, an Americal photographer who is joining a scientific expedition. Although they are drawn together, each has their own destiny, so they separate with hopes to meet in the future. Hannah settles in Adelaide where she struggles to set up a practice. There she meets Jamie O'Brien, a wanted outlaw. Their paths cross again leading to Hannah's experience in the Outback at a desolate opal camp.
Ms. Wood weaves in evocative descriptions of the Australian landscape with the bustle of the more settled but expanding Adelaide and Melbourne as her colorful characters establish lives for themselves in this new world. Will Hannah succeed in influencing the health and wellbeing of the people she treats? Who does she choose to spend the rest of her life with? How do her friends fare on their chosen paths? How do the Aborigines help both Neal and Hannah discover their true paths in life? You'll just have to read This Golden Land to find out. It's an enjoyable journey.
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