La Rochelle's Road

Black Swan / Random House New Zealand, 2011. Good secondhand condition.

This is a story of settling in a new land, of hardship, resilience and of love. In 1866, Daniel Peterson and his family give up their comfortable life in London for an unseen farm on Banks Peninsula. Daniel plans to make a fortune growing grass-seed; until he does so, there can be no going back. But the realities of a remote hill country block are very different to the cosy imaginings of a clerk. The Petersons find themselves at the mercy of the land, the weather and their few neighbours - a motley, suspicious assortment of old whalers, escaped convicts, wary French settlers and true-blue Tory squatters. Even their own house has a secret to hide - that of its first inhabitant, the scandalous Etienne La Rochelle and his Maori lover. When Daniel's daughter Hester discovers La Rochelle's journal, it leads her on a journey of discovery - a path into a world of beauty, darkness and illicit love, which she may follow if she dares.