Yates Landing - Kate Stirling

Recently I've been getting into historical books about the early settlers of New Zealand. One that I've just finished reading is "Yates Landing" by Kate Stirling, and ok it's a historical romance but it's got a good storyline and quite a bit of action.

It's about a young lady called Chloe Mainwell who lives in England during the Victorian era who travels to France to stay with relatives so she can make her debut into society but an incident with her uncle leaves her parents with the impression that she has been spoiled and therefore they push her into a loveless marriage with Thomas Yates who has recently bought land and has a farm in New Zealand on the Kaipara.

Chloe starts off as a somewhat spoiled girl without any idea of how difficult life can be but gradually through circumstances that happen she grows up and learns how to be tough and eventually learns to love the land she once hated.

Kate Stirling has also written another novel which is vintage rather than Victorian in nature called Thunder Children also about early life in the Kaipara - if you can I urge you to see if your library has a copy of these books as they are well worth reading.

(image from coolslaw)