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5.0 out of 5 stars
INTRIGUING HISTORICAL FICTION..., Dec 13 2006
This is an entertaining work of historical fiction by best selling author Norah Lofts. A master storyteller, Ms. Lofts transports the reader to the mid-seventeenth century, where Cromwell's puritan army is on the march, killing Royalists everywhere. In Ireland, an English lord and his lady, Royalists to the core, await their doom in their castle, while their infant daughter's Irish nursemaid, Maire, spirits their babe away to seek safety in some local caves.
The child, Julia, is saved but brought up in poverty in rural Ireland, as all her kinfolk have perished by Cromwell's hand and their property confiscated. When Maire dies, Julia is a young child of about eight years, left to virtually fend for herself, eating slops left for pigs, and on the brink of starvation. One day, she catches the eye of a kindly Dutch sea captain who, realizing she is an orphan, decides to take her with him back to the Netherlands, as he and his wife of twenty-two years have been unable to have a child. Speaking Gaelic with a smattering of English, Julia quickly learns to speak Dutch. Unfortunately, the sea captain's wife does not take to Julia, though she hides it from her husband, who dotes on the child.
When the sea captain dies unexpectedly about four years later, his widow loses little time in shedding herself of the child whom she has always secretly resented as a usurper of her husband's affection. Placed in an orphanage, Julia once again learns to fend for herself. She has a hard time adapting herself to life in the orphanage and, ultimately, at the age of fourteen, finds herself sent away to the Home for Company's Daughters. This was a home where young women were trained to become good wives for the Dutchmen who worked overseas in the spice trade for the Dutch East India Company, growing nutmegs and cloves. Many of these Dutchmen prospered on plantations on exotic islands in the South East Indies, becoming rich and living like Eastern potentates.
To be such a wife was to be the beautiful Julia's fate, as she shortly finds herself married off by proxy to a man whom she has never met or seen. Embarking on a long sea voyage to meet her husband, she eventually arrives on the Moluccan island of Banda, only to find herself greeted by her father-in-law rather than her husband. Spirited away to the remote, smaller island of Rua, she encounters a strange exotic beauty on that plantation island and a mystery surrounding her young, wealthy husband. In due course, she meets him, and the mystery is unveiled. Julia reluctantly finds herself playing a part in a drama directed by her father-in-law. Slowly, an insidious plot is revealed to her, and it becomes too clear why a Company's Daughter was selected to be the wife of the plantation's heir.
This was an interesting book, because of its unusual locale and historical underpinnings. Well written, with an eye for period detail, the author maintains the reader's attention. Filled with suspense and adventure, this is a book that will keep the reader turning its pages. Those who enjoy the works of Victoria Holt and Anya Seton will surely appreciate Ms. Lofts' skill in rendering a worthwhile work of historical fiction.
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