Isle of Tears - Deborah Challinor (2009)I am not a huge fan of New Zealand authors. A lot seem to be too busy trying to show their literary skills and the story gets lost in a flurry of flowery sentiment, and over wordy sentences.
Deborah Challinor, is great though and I think her stories would be popular anywhere they were read. In this book Isla is a teenager, when her parents are murdered leaving her and her siblings orphaned. Finding shelter with local Maori, they soon make new lives for themselves. I particularly like the contrast between their Scottish background and their new Maori culture.
I think it will have to be 3/5 for this book , a perfect winter nights read. I did enjoy it, but I found that some chapters and issues in the book seemed a bit rushed, essential storylines sometimes seemed underdeveloped and would warrant only a page or so. Like there were a couple of chapters on staying in Auckland, but only a few pages about the escape, then an even shorter description of the journey south.
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