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ISBN / ISSN:
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9781877135927
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Cross Tides is the story of Bel’s stay with her relations while her parents sort out their dissolving marriage: a stay in which she uncovers a strong connection to the history of a coastal area in the Marlborough Sounds. The connection appears through a highly believable and engaging ‘visitation’ from the ghost of Lizzie Dawson, whose presence allows Bel to witness scenes from the past. (Lizzi’s father lost her in a card game to the captain of a whaling ship, a ship that left Sydney for New Zealand with the young sixteen-year-old on board.)
New Zealand’s early colonial beginnings – whaling stations, land tussles, preachers and shotgun weddings – leap into vivid life. Running in parallel is a rich contemporary portrait using the strands of land rights and family issues.
There’s an exciting eeriness in the connection between past and present and high drama in both plots. Bel is a delightful mixture of spiky and vulnerable, and her identification with Lizzie is strongly imagined. Lizzie’s plight — being dragged from her family, forced to marry, a subsequent love affair with a Maori preacher and the suspicious death of the preacher — ties in significantly with the contemporary story. An impressive and powerful first novel.
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