A Great Act of Love

Author/Guide: Heather Rose

Why a Booktrail?

1839, 2025: A stolen map leads to quite the journey

ISBN: 978-1399823821
Genre: Historical

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What you need to know before your trail

Caroline examines a stolen map. And there she finds it, at the edge of the Western Hemisphere, a black mark at the 30th latitude smaller than a flea: Norfolk Island. Her Aunt thinks she’s a fool for wanting to follow her father to the other side of the world. He is no longer the man who taught Caroline about philosophy, apothecary and dreamt of returning to the France of his childhood. He is a convicted murderer, mad, deported, condemned. But, when she understands that Caroline is determined, her Aunt has one piece of advice: she must leave her past behind and invent a new story.

In 1839, Caroline lands in Van Dieman’s Land, a young widow of means with a boy in her care. In this insular colony of exiles and opportunists, no-one talks too much about their past. Caroline leases a run-down cottage and abandoned vineyard and, on this island of extreme seasons and wild beauty, she embarks on a fearless enterprise to reclaim her father, create champagne, and rewrite her family’s legacy.

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Travel Guide

Tasmania/ Australia

Based on true events, Charles Swanston was a prominent figure in Hobart – he was a merchant, politician, investor in the Derwent Bank and owned an old cottage and vineyard that once belonged to an English man called Bartholomew Broughton.

“Wherever ships travel, money travels. But the British pounds have a purity about them. They represent class, and Caroline has determined in the short time she has been in the colony that class matters here perhaps even more than in England, for so few people have it.”

The novel encompasses the French Revolution, the Industrial revolution, slavery in the USA, the experiences of convicts in both Tasmania and Norfolk Island. there’s also an interesting thread on wine production in Australia.