Sarah Thornhill

Sarah Thornhill, Kate Grenville

I was delighted to discover that Kate Grenville, author of  The Secret River and The Lieutenant (both reviewed here), has just published the final in this loose trilogy, Sarah Thornhill.  

Sarah is the daughter of William Thornhill, the main character of The Secret River.  It is set some 20 years after the events of that book, and concentrates on Sarah and her life as she changes from a girl to a young woman.  Set in early settled New South Wales, it tells the story of love found and lost, then found again; with subplots covering the tensions in race relations (black, while and Maori) and family secrets.

Grenville has again drawn threads of her family history into the story (as she did for The Secret River), yet being told this time from a female perspective it adds another element.

Just this week I was lucky to go to a Get Reading Night, hosted by our local library, where Kate Grenville was the speaker.  It was very good and she spoke about how the story came from her searching through the family history, which then developed into this novel.

If you enjoy early colonial history novels or you have enjoyed Grenville's other work, you will definitely like this one.  

I should add - "3 cheers for libraries".  I read the review of this book in the paper 2 weeks ago, saying it was about to be released.  I reserved it at the library.  Two days later I had the book in my hands.   There would have been close to 200 people at the event the other night and I was only one of a handful who had read it.   Gotta love the library!!