Author: Harmony Verna
ISBN: 9781760374075
RRP: $29.99
The blurb on the back of this book says:
In a stunning debut novel that evokes the epic scope of Colleen McCullough’s classic The Thorn Birds, Harmony Verna creates a poignant story of forbidden love and unwielding courage, set in Australia and America in the early decades of the twentieth century.
A comparison to The Thorn Birds, that’s some pretty big shoes to fill and some hefty expectations. Daughter of Australia is also a debut, which means no-one has any idea on this author’s work or what to expect.
I read an uncorrected proof copy which arrived on my desk a little while ago and I wanted to start it but I was also eagerly awaiting another epic Australian historical so ended up putting this one off. The decision to feature it as a book club title jumped it straight to the top of the pile, and I’m still itching to get my claws into the other historical; and leaves me wishing I had read it when it first arrived.
Western Australia is the background to much of this epic tale, and epic it really is. Beginning with the heartbreaking abandonment of a young girl by her father in the heat of the West Australian desert just before the turn of the 20th Century I knew that my heartstrings would be getting a workout in this one.
The young girl is discovered under a tree by passing miners, miraculously still breathing but only just. The miners detour from their planned route to get her help, finding a Doctor but no hospital in the nearest town. Trauma has silenced the girl, which doesn’t do her any favours as her physical wounds heal. Unable to discover anything about the foundling she is named after the town she is saved in, Leonora, and sent to an orphanage.
Now, at this point I know that Leonora is our heroine, she is going to be with us until the end. Her saviour though, I expected his part in the narrative to end with his handing her into the arms of the Doctor but that was not to be.
Ghan is a miner who has done it tough, mining wasn’t a safe occupation and Ghan has the scars to prove it. Arms crisscrossed in scar tissue, a leg that drags, a missing ear and a face that has been the brunt of too many fists. He is so caught up in the ugliness of his body that even he doesn’t recognise the beauty of his kind soul. He heads back to his delivery after leaving Leonora with the Doctor but he can’t put her out of his head so he returns at his next opportunity.
Ghan is a hard and dedicated worker, he doesn’t know how not to be working so he finds himself following the work. His injuries create issues for him at times but he always manages to get just enough work to get by and throughout the narrative we pick up with him a couple of times and see what he’s up to.
Leonora is disadvantaged at the orphanage because many of the other orphans see her silence as weakness and use it to make her a victim. James, one of the other orphans, takes her under his wing and slowly they forge a friendship as he fights to protect her; until they are separated. Leonora is adopted by a wealthy American family and James is taken in by relatives who came from Ireland for him.
The story follows both Leonora and James as their lives take them in different directions, and separates them by continents. Neither of them find the life they dreamed of and both are plagued by heartbreak and hardships, though of totally different types.
The characterisation is interesting to say the least. Verna has written a wealth of different character types and they have all been written well. Australia at the turn of the 20th Century was an interesting time in history, with the rise and fall of mining, farming and the relations with the indigenous population. None of the characters are black and white, none are inherently good or inherently evil though there is one that was pretty irredeemable I thought.
From the very first time that we see her we know that Leonora is special, there is a light in her that touches all those around her. She is good, she is huge hearted and she wants to do good with her life but that isn’t always as easy to put into practice and she makes some questionable choices, though we can always see the justification for her choices and they were never lightly made.
I was kept guessing quite well in this one actually. I would think I had it picked, be sure I knew what was going to happen, and then that would be thrown right off the table and I would be left wondering if there would be a happy ever after.
There were some beautiful moments but there was also an awful lot of heartbreak and an emotional rollercoaster of just how bad things could get.
Daughter of Australia has an authenticity that surprised me and a believability I wasn’t sure I would find. Verna masterfully illustrates the massive divide between the wealthy and the poverty stricken and the hidden depths behind every appearance.
Surprisingly emotional and entertaining this is a convincing debut that will definitely have Verna finding fans ready to watch where her career takes her.
Thanks to Harlequin Mira 30 of our Beauty and Lace Club Members will be reading Daughter of Australia so please be aware there may be spoilers in the comments.
Daughter of Australia is available now through Harlequin Australia, Angus and Robertson Bookworld, Booktopia and where all good books are sold.
I devour books, vampires and supernatural creatures are my genre of choice but over the past couple of years, I have broadened my horizons considerably. In a nutshell – I love to write! I love interacting with a diverse range of artists to bring you interviews. Perhaps we were perfect before – I LOVE WORDS!
Loved this Book I feel that Harmony Verna has a great talent & hopefully will become very successful & supply us with more books like Daughter of Australia.
A delightful read full of anguish heartache love but most of all strength of characters which pull at the heartstrings enough to want to put it down while you wipe the tears away but know you can’t because you need to know what happens next.Great storyline with great characters just a great book.
Absolutely loved it & will recommend to friends that they read it.
Daughter of Australia is an epic love story and slice of Australiana. But it’s also amazing to note that the author is not even an Aussie. The novel is actually Harmony Verna’s debut one and she has beautifully captured our land of boundless plains with her gorgeous and evocative prose. Daughter of Australia is ultimately a very easy-to-read book that is engrossing and hard to put down.
The story begins with a sweet little girl being abandoned in the West Australian desert. She is on the verge of death but luckily she is also saved by a passing miner named Ghan. This disabled and big-hearted man takes the child to a doctor and eventually she recovers and goes to live in a local orphanage. But she is so traumatised by this past experience that she becomes a mute.
At the orphanage the little girl named Leonora (after the town where she was found) is cared for by a well-meaning priest. Another orphan child named James also ends up befriending Leonora. James is a boy with a heart of gold because he abhors injustice and cruelty. The pair become firm friends but their relationship does not last because eventually Leonora is adopted by a rich American couple and James goes to live in country Australia with extended members of his Irish family.
The two children grow up having difficult lives in their own unique ways. Leonora is trapped by a brutal aunt and forced into an unhappy marriage with a mean and ambitious mining tycoon. James on the other hand has a life of hard graft on his aunt and uncle’s vast and unforgiving property. The pair are eventually reunited when Leonora’s husband purchases land and mines in rural Australia and James comes looking for work. This reunion will leave readers asking whether the two old friends will be able to rekindle their past affections or will the divide between two classes be a bridge too far?
Daughter of Australia has been likened to Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds and it’s easy to see why. This novel is also worthy of comparison to Bryce Courtney’s Jessica. Daughter of Australia is ultimately a rich book that tackles a number of different threads and issues like: race, love, class, jealousy, work, grief and fear. The characters are vivid, engaging and feel like real people. This book is ultimately a delightful Australiana one and journey towards discovery and identity. It’s also one where beautiful language is juxtaposed against the harsh, Australian outback. It’s simply gorgeous!
I was hooked after just 2 pages!! Simply brilliant read. I think this is the best book I have reviewed ever on Beauty and Lace Book club! It draws you in, right from the start . The descriptions are so vivid , so real, it instantly transports you to the hot and dusty WA.
My favourite character was Ghan, his goodness all through the book in-spite of life always treating him bad was so inspiring and heart wrenching. Leonora the heroine as a child with her vulnerability at being abandoned retains her core of innocent goodness. Loved the parts of the childhood years at the orphanage with James. The pain of the two childhood friends that draws them closer is beautifully described.
I think the main theme running through the book is that goodness exists at some people’s core and no matter what life throws at them this core remains indestructible and pure.
I only wished that Ghan had got to go with them to the orphanage at the end so life could for once be tender and peaceful towards him.
The hardship and despair of the mining workers was very sad to read about. As well as the treatment of the Aboriginal families. A dark chapter of Australia,s past.
Overall a beautiful book, that is Australian to its core hard, strong, yet tender and breathtakingly beautiful.
This book was an unforgettable read and what an amazing debut novel for Harmony Verna. I just couldn’t put this book down once I started reading this and I was lost in all the characters lives, it was just so addictive! The description of all the characters and the setting of this novel was so vivid, I could imagine myself in the harsh Australian outback watching the story unfolding.
I thought that all the characters and their own individual stories were all interwoven into the main story of our heroine Leonora brilliantly and I was just a praying that Leonora and James had that happy ever after ending that I had hoped for them after their turbulent childhood.
Although I found the novel quite heavy at times and I shed quite a few tears, it was an enjoyable read. I almost felt a bit sad when I finished because I felt so engrossed in the characters that were so vividly brought to life.
This book had everything to capture my attention, I just loved it!
Oh my Goodness I seriously loved this book. I was so very excited when I saw that it was up for review as I had read a short article about this book and from then I badly wanted it so I was very pleased to be informed that I was going to be on the review team.
The moment i started reading I was dragged in and didnt want to put the book down but of course life goes on so I had to put the book down and spend time chatting with my daughter, cooking meals and sleeping but as soon as my daughter left for her week long trip to Bali I spent more time with Leonora and finished the book after two days. Then I felt sad that the story had come to an end as Leonora had become a part of my life and I had spent a lot of time thinking about her. I had followed her from the time she was found so close to death and badly burned by the hot sun in the Australian outback. Ghan the gentle soul trapped inside a disfigured body who spent his time thinking about the young girl that he found and feared would die before they could reach a hospital. They made it to the town of Leonora and although there was no hospital there was a Doctor. Ghan left the young child with the Doctor and the Doctors wife quickly fell in love with the child and longed to adopt her. Sadly the Doctor was not having a bar of this and when the opportunity came to be rid of the child he took it. Leonora had never spoken so she was named after the town. She was then sent to an orphanage where she was teased by most of the other children who found her an easy target as she never spoke. Thankfully she forms a friendship with James who is another child at the orphanage but as seems to be the way in her life he is soon taken from her also.
This is seriously I most wonderful story and one of those books that I know in time I will pick up and read again. I loved reading ti and was sad when I reached the last page.
Harmony Verna is without a doubt a name that I will look out for in the future as i know already that I need to get any and all books that she may happen to write.
Thank you so very much Beauty and Lace for allowing me to discover Harmony Verna.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and had a hard time putting it down. Harmony Venna has created a wonderful, emotional story of historical Australia. Great characters, descriptive settings and well written.
Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this wonderful novel. I am now looking forward to reading Harmony Verna’s future books.
What a beautifully written story! The characters and the setting, the author yook me on an emotional roller coaster! It reminded me of what I love about the Australian spirit, the courage to achieve good things no matter what life has thrown you in the past. I look forward to reading more from this author.
I was really surprised by this book as I didnt think it was going to be so damn good! Harmony Verna is definately one of my favourite authers now (look out JoJo Moyes)
I easily fell into this book with the in-depth description of everything from the surroundings to the characters, she is a very talented writer that left me very impressed.
I lost count of the times I started to really choke up nearly on the verge of crying and not many books do that to me. I loved the excitement of James and Leonora reuniting as I kept wanting for more. The accents of the characters were just great and I found myself grinning and even laughing at the many sayings throughout this book.
I really loved Mrs Shelby, she had a heart of gold ( somepin bout er) haha she was great, I was choked up when Leonora and James went there after learning of the 2 brothers fate that went to war.
Was sad to know what happened to Tom as he was a real laugh and had the best humour.
I was always waiting for Ghan to reunite with Leonora but I guess it happened in the part where he passed and a soft breeze slid past her like the brush of an angel and she started to cry telling one of the children she was feeling sentimental. Poor old Ghan had such a hard life but he really was Leonora`s angel as well as Jame`s in the end.
Leonora and James both had bad men in their lives being her husband Alex and James`s uncle Shamus who blamed him for tess`s death and for living in Australia.
Was touching how Leonora saved the Aborigines from Alex`s cruel ways, he definately got his just desserts in the end.
I did feel a bit awful for hating Eleanor Fairfield as Owen explained near the end and she left her that wonderful inheritence of land after she died for Leonora which was the help to escape from the cruel hands of Alex in the end. Glad to see James will get his wish of having 30 children with their orphanage.
Gosh I could go on and on and rave about this book because it was a real emotional whirlwind that captured and captivated me more than any other book I have read for a while, Harmony Verna is someone to definately keep our eyes on as she is real good!
Thanks Beauty and Lace and Harlequin for this fabulous read as it will stay in my mind for a while.
I absolutely adored Daughter of Australia by Harmony Verna. An stunning debut novel set in Western Australia around the time of WW2. The characters are very engaging and easy to let into your imagination.
So many different reasons to keep turning the pages as I read but not wanting to get to the last because then the story had ended .
Definitely a book that you can get swept up in and lose track of time, perfect for a cold windy afternoon or evening.
From the moment we meet Leonora, the central character in this epic tale , you will be captivated.
A thoroughly enjoyable read. Thankyou Beauty and Lace and Harlequin for giving me this book to read, enjoy and review. I look forward to reading more books from Harmony Verna in the future .
“Daughter of Australia” is a book I liked, and enjoyed, but which also had aspects which annoyed me. It is the story of Leonora, a child left to die in the Australian desert but rescued by a miner delivering supplies; and James, an orphan already resident in the orphanage Leonora eventually arrives at. These two loners find each other and form a strong bond. They are then torn apart as James is claimed by long lost relatives, and Leonora adopted by an American couple with ulterior motives. As adults they unexpectedly find each other again, but in circumstances which seem to prevent them being together.
The trope of the innocent girl who’s forced or manipulated into marriage, and whose first experience of sex is rape at the hand of her new husband, is pretty overused. Yes, I know it happened and probably still happens. But there are far more subtle (and also realistic) ways to depict an abusive marriage, and I felt Verna took the easy route here.
I also felt that some of the subplots around minor characters could have used some pruning. We heard a great deal about Father McIntyre, and I’m not at all sure that we needed it all. Similarly, there was a great deal about Ghan in there, and much of it seemed unnecessary – for example, if Chapter 16 was excised from the novel completely, no one would notice at all.
This excessive detail about some fairly minor characters (although granted, they do play important, if brief, roles in Leonora and James’ lives) impacted on the pacing – I found this a little slow to grip me, and it felt as though there were few peaks in the first half of the novel – everything trotted along at an even, slow pace. On the positive side, this did help to build a strong picture of the kind of world that Leonora and James live in, and to signal the passing of time.
Nevertheless, I got caught up in Leonora and James’ lives, and very much wanted to find out what happened to them. In some regards there were no great surprises here – it follows a fairly established pattern – but Verna makes most of it interesting and engaging. There are not too many of these types of novel set in Australia, and she makes the most of the setting to tell an old story from a slightly different angle.
If you’re prepared to invest a little time to get past a slow start, this is an enjoyable book that provides an insight into a young Australia. Although I found it took a while to engage me, this isn’t a difficult read and is (at minimum) interesting throughout; I think a lot of readers will enjoy this.