Published 2nd April 2020 by Red Door Press.
Read April 2020.
London, 1891: Sarah and Harriet Cameron are two sisters, who lost their mother at a young age, and have been raised by their philosopher father to be free thinkers and independent minded young women.
Harriet is a talented artist and content to help her father with his work. She sees no reason to tie herself to a man by marriage.
Sarah's first love is music and she is an accomplished pianist, but she is more romantic than her sister. When she meets the dashing Henry Vincent, fresh from his travels in Australia, at a women's suffrage meeting, love comes calling.
After Sarah and Henry marry and set off for a new life in Australia, Harriet feels the break-up of her small family unit deeply - especially when her sister's departure is closely followed by the unexpected death of their father.
With her sister so far away, and her father now gone, Harriet's grief causes her to lose her purpose. There is now little to tie her to London and she longs to see the new country Sarah describes so vividly in her letters. So she embarks on a journey that takes her to the other side of the world.
Harriet finds that the uncompromising raw beauty of the Australian outback and the friendship she develops with an Aboriginal stockman have the power to change her life in ways that she could never have imagined back in smoky London.
But there is violence and danger in this new land too, and someone is out dash Harriet's hopes and to get his revenge upon her. Can Harriet finally find the happiness she deserves?
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Where do I even start with trying to do justice to Alison Booth's beautiful book The Philosopher's Daughters? I guess the first thing to say is that this is a fine example of the best in historical fiction writing, and undoubtedly one of my favourite reads so far this year.
This is a book that will completely immerse you in the lives of Harriet and Sarah Cameron - two young women with the benefit of the kind of education and freedom denied to the majority of females at the time. Two extraordinary, gutsy women who are nevertheless quite different from each other.
Harriet is the logical sister, who sees her life set out before her as one devoted to her painting and assisting her father with his academic work. She is a keen campaigner for change, and is not afraid to speak out against injustice. She has no need of a husband, and indeed feels that marriage would not be conducive to her happiness - and she is at liberty to follow this path, because of her unconventional upbringing.
Sarah is the more vivacious and impulsive of the sisters. Her prodigious musical talent. although just as creative as Harriet's, allows her to express her more emotional nature perfectly. She is much more sensitive to the feelings of others than her sister, and is less inclined to express opinions she thinks may cause upset - although her heart is firmly in the right place and she feels just as strongly about righting injustice as Harriet, albeit in a more gentle way.
Yet, when our story moves from cold, conventional London, to the heat and intensity of Australia, we see a change in our sisters as they learn more about themselves. Sarah finds her mettle, and Harriet discovers she does have a need for love in her life after all. And all the while, our author draws the most wonderful backdrop that engulfs us and brings to life the wild beauty and casual violence of a country still finding its way.
I loved that this book takes us to two very different environments - Victorian London and the Australian Outback - and despite the obvious differences between the two, Alison Booth manages to link them beautifully through the themes of suffrage and social justice, and she does this with aplomb. I learnt plenty about Australian history that I did not know before and it was absolutely fascinating.
But this is also a book full of romance and love - both in the relationships our characters have with each other, and it terms of their relationships with their environment. A love of Australia - its rugged beauty and its mythology - shines out from these pages and works its way into your own heart too.
This is an absolute beaut of a book, so don't miss out!
The Philosopher's Daughters is available to buy from your favourite book retailer now.
Thank you to Alison Booth and Red Door Press for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Anne Cater for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
From the cover of the book:
London in 1891:
Harriet Cameron is a talented young artist
whose mother died when she was barely five.
She and her beloved sister Sarah were brought up by their father,
radical thinker James Cameron.
After adventurer Henry Vincent arrives on the scene,
the sisters' lives are changed forever.
Sarah, the beauty of the family, marries Henry
and embarks on a voyage to Australia.
Harriet, intensely missing Sarah, must decide whether
to help her father with his life's work or devote herself to painting.
When James Cameron dies unexpectedly, Harriet is overwhelmed by grief.
Seeking distraction, she follows Sarah to Australia, and afterwards into the
Northern Territory outback, where she is alienated by the casual violence
and great injustices of outback life.
Her rejuvenation begins with her friendship with an Aboriginal stockman
and her growing love for the landscape. But this fragile happiness is soon
threatened by murders at a nearby cattle station
and by a menacing station hand seeking revenge.
Born in Melbourne and brought up in Sydney, Alison spent over two decades studying, living and working in the UK before returning to Australia some fifteen years ago. Her ancestors came to Australia from England and Scotland at the end of the 1800s, before Federation in 1901. Indeed, in 1891, when the novel starts, 32% of the Australian population were born overseas, mostly in the UK. Alison grew up fascinated by the thought that Australia once comprised small colonies, teetering on the edge of the vast continent, and wanted in this new novel to travel back in time to view it through the eyes of two strong young women. The tales of Alison’s late father, Norman Booth, about his years in the Northern Territory also awakened her interest in the Northern Territory.
Her debut novel, Stillwater Creek, was Highly Commended in the 2011 ACT Book of the Year Award, and afterwards published in Reader’s Digest Select Editions in Asia and in Europe. Alison’s other novels are The Indigo Sky (2011), A Distant Land (2012), and A Perfect Marriage (2018).
Alison is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the Australian National University.
In November 2019, Alison was made Fellow of the Econometric Society, a prestigious international society for the advancement of economic theory in its relation to statistics and mathematics.
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