Indulged and wealthy Kat Fitzhubert is sold in an arranged marriage to a colony across the world. Lady Viola Montefiore is the dark-skinned changeling of a ducal family, kept hidden and then shipped away. Titania Boot is as broad as a carthorse, and as useful.
On the long sea voyage from their homeland of England, these three women are fast bonded in an unlikely friendship. In the turmoil of 1850s Australia – which has reinvented itself from convict colony to a land of gold rushes and illusive riches – one woman forges a business empire, while another turns to illegal brewery, working alongside a bushranger as the valleys around her are destroyed. The third vanishes on her wedding day, in a scandal that will intrigue and mystify Sydney’s polite society and beyond.
I’m a huge reader of historical fiction, which is why I love Jackie French; when she’s not writing for children or working on one of her many, fabulous book series’, she writes marvellous historical novels that re-examine Australian history, and the place of women in it. Her last standalone, The Angel of Waterloo, was a captivating novel about one woman’s journey from the hell of Waterloo to colonial Australia. French returns to similar territory with No Hearts of Gold, a gripping story about three women clouded by scandal, who forge new lives for themselves in colonial New South Wales.
One of the things I most enjoy about French’s fiction is the way she writes women back into history – a history which until recently, has been dominated by men’s stories. In this magnificent and broad-sweeping novel, French defies the myth of colonial women as merely wives, servants, petty thieves or whores. Instead, in this masterful storyteller’s hands, these three women become arbiters of a destiny far richer than the bewitching glitter and lure of gold. Kat, Viola and Titania each make for strong, captivating protagonists, and it was a genuine pleasure to follow each of their stories.
Meticulously researched, vividly imagined and utterly compelling, No Hearts of Gold was a brilliant read, demonstrating once again why Jackie French sits atop this genre. If you’re looking for a gripping new story to bury your nose in this Christmas, pop No Hearts of Gold on the top of your wish list.
More thanks than I can say – you’ve seen all I hoped to put in it, Jackie