Having family connections to the early days of the Pearling industry in Cossack and Broome, Western Australia, Pilbara, Judy Nunn’s latest Australian Historic Fiction was an absolute joy to read, as it follows the story of Charles Burton, a widower who arrives in the Pilbara with his young family to take on the life of the owner of large station.
Charlotte Burton was raised by her father, a widower, a man who was the local Squire as was his family before him. Intelligent and an outdoor child she wore trousers and a jacket as she went about learning everything she could about life on the land.
When the family fortunes begin to slide, Charlotte finds that as she is now a widow and mother of three children, and at the request of her Uncle in Australia, it is up to her to travel to the Pilbara to try and rescue not only Burton Station but her families’ estates in Yorkshire.
Arriving in Perth she discovers her beloved Uncle has died, but she is still expected to travel north. She is now firmly entrenched as Charles, widower and father, a disguise that must remain in place as the early days of the Pilbara were lawless ones, filled with danger, hard work, and no place for a woman on her own.
Following a well thought-out five-year plan, she systematically sets about repaying the debt loaned to her father by her Uncle and becoming a well-respected member of the local community.
As the children grow older, Victoria, a young woman in the same mould as her mother, intelligent and determined, falls in love at a very young age but has fallen foul of two men who are out to seek revenge. They eventually do, almost causing Charles’ carefully structed plans of returning to Yorkshire to collapse.
Judy Nunn has caught the heartbeat of an ancient country the days of hard men, lawless behaviour and the insidious development that saw men think nothing of killing as they chased the illusive gold.
She also draws attention to the plight of the Indigenous people as they too were hunted and chased from their lands in the obsession with land grabbing and wealth.
Pilbara is a gentle, captivating read which draws you into the life and times of Charlotte Burton as she moves from child to mother to station owner, all the while learning that life does not always go to plan and that by accepting and adjusting to events life can be rich and enjoyable.
