Z is for Zana

And with this post we come to the end of Historical Tapestry's Alphabet in Historical Fiction challenge.  It's been fun choosing and reviewing these 26 books over the past year and more.  Thanks to my fellow participants and also all of the readers and commenters for keeping me company along the way.

I'm choosing Zana Bell's Forbidden Frontier as my final selection, not only because it fits the pattern but also because it leads nicely into the Nautical Fiction challenge I'll be taking on in 2011.  This one doesn't count for the latter because it's a book I'd read a while ago and had reviewed elsewhere, but it's worth highlighting, and revisiting it may help me find my sea legs a little faster!

Charlotte Badger is a heroine of a type I’d not encountered before. A strapping, self-reliant, and clever woman, Charlotte’s not above a little thievery or whoring if it’ll get her a few more drams of rum. She narrates her story beginning with her transportation from London to Port Jackson in faraway New South Wales in the year 1800. Sharing the harrowing voyage with Charlotte and her fellow convicts are Nathan Wesley, an idealistic missionary, and his distant wife, Elizabeth, whose viewpoints appear in alternating sections. Their paths come together when Charlotte convinces Nathan to make her their house servant.

To their dismay, the Wesleys discover their new home consists of little more than ramshackle huts with earthen floors, muddy roads, and a lumpy, deserted landscape. The social strata amongst the settlers mimic that of their English homeland, with rich landowners at the top of the scale and convict labor and the despised Irish at the very bottom. Charlotte finds a sort of freedom in her life outside prison, while Nathan follows his adventurous spirit to extremes, and Elizabeth hides her feelings under a mask of decorum to preserve her marriage. It’s only later, as each forms new relationships and undergoes difficult trials, that they make peace with their true selves.

The historical record provides the bare bones of Charlotte’s tale: the first recorded white woman in New Zealand, she arrived there in 1806 after staging a mutiny. This leaves plenty of room for speculation on her background and motivations. Bell ably captures the difficulties of eking out an existence on a new frontier, Sydney’s gradual development into a full-fledged town, and the way disillusionment can transform into opportunity, and vice versa, at a moment’s notice. Charlotte’s irreverent, good-humored voice and her ability to seize the best out of every meager prospect kept me reading. I enjoyed this novel immensely.

Forbidden Frontier was published by Mira Australia in 2008 in trade paper at $32.95 Aus. ($37.00 NZ).