Blackbird

by David Crookes

The early wealth of Queensland depended on slavery, known in Australia as Blackbirding. South Sea islanders were tricked or forced aboard slave ships, then sold to the highest bidder and forced to cut cane on the northern sugar plantations.
Beautiful young Kiri, destined for slavery is rescued from her fate by half-breed Ben Luk, a prospector who plans to become a respectable businessman in Brisbane after acquiring wealth in the Palmer River goldfields.
However racial prejudice runs high in the colony and Ben and Kiri make ruthless, unforgiving enemies who will stop at nothing to bring them down. Ultimately their refusal to bow to tyranny, and their love for each other, carry them though their many turbulent adventures.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Australia, Ebooks

307 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Misfit · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I suppose there are isolated cases where the Kanakas don't fully understand all the details, but you must realize, we really are doing them a great favor by bringing them here, away from their lives of sloth, and giving themthe (sic) chance to perform honest, character-building labor."

This novel focuses on events in Queensland, Australia in the late 1880's. The colony is growing by leaps and bounds, but cheap *labor* is needed to keep things running, and a healthy profit can be made by blackbirding -*recruiting* natives into indentured servitude (a rose by any other name is still slavery). Kiri is one of those natives, although her great beauty gets her a life at the high-end whorehouse and not the sugarcane fields. Kiri's story is intertwined with that of Ben-Luk (half English/half Chinese) along with those involved in Stonehouse, a prominent trading house in Queensland.

I did enjoy this book, and I'm glad I read it as I don't know much about Australia's history, but I'm having a hard time trying to categorize it. I can't figure out if this should be more of an action/adventure type of guy book, a straight historical, a romance or something else. I never felt fully engaged in either the story or the characters, just more like a mildly interested observer, and I suspect the abrupt POV switches contributed to that. The Kindle edition I read has some odd formatting issues, plus a few more typos than I care to see - free e-book or not.

"I ﾁfind it a very stimulating divergence from the office."

That odd little character after I showed up in all kinds of strange places.

"carriagereturned"

There were a lot of words without spaces between, and periods
"Your looking wonderful."

I could be wrong again, but I think that should be you're...

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great potential, very interesting material about an historical time and place unfamiliar to me. I don’t feel the potential was realised; perhaps non-fiction would have been a better milieu for this author. As it was, the main characters - Ben and Kiri - were underdeveloped. I never really felt like I got to know them. A pity, all the raw material was here for a cracker of a story.

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Something was wrong.’

Between 1863 and 1904, over 60,000 Melanesian islanders became indentured labourers in the colony of Queensland, Australia. The process was known as ‘blackbirding’, and most of the workers were effectively slaves. The methods of blackbirding varied: while some labourers were apparently willing to be taken to Australia for work, many were tricked and others were kidnapped.

This novel is set in during that period in colonial Queensland and Kiri is a beautiful young victim of blackbirding destined for slavery until she is rescued by Ben Luk. Ben is half Chinese and is himself a victim of the racial prejudice which seems endemic within the colony. Ben has plans to make his fortune in Brisbane, using wealth obtained from the Palmer River goldfields. Unfortunately, Ben makes enemies while defending Kiri and those enemies seem determined to destroy everything Ben has worked for.

This work of historical fiction incorporates a love story within a much broader story about a period of Australian history which is probably not as well-known as it should be. Each of the characters and many of the situations encountered illustrate particular facets of late nineteenth century colonial life - the good, the bad and the ugly are each covered. There are some truly unlikeable characters in this novel and they sometimes meet with marvellously appropriate (if occasionally fortuitous) outcomes.

This was David Crookes’s first novel, and I am looking forward to reading his other books.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Cherry Moran · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as historical fiction goes, this book was just OK. I've read several books dealing with the slave trades and the injustices suffered by both brown and yellow skinned people. It takes a great author to bring those stories to life and draw the reader in and truly identify with the characters. At times while reading this story, I felt a bit lost. I didn't really identify with or fall in love with any one character. I reluctantly accepted Ben and Kiri in the end as there was no build up to their relationship, more of a "here ya go!"

The story, to my delight, finally picked up in the final chapters. The end of the story is the absolute best, well written part. It made plugging away through the rest of the story worth it, to be honest.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and I liked the fact that I learned about Australia's history, which I basically never learned about in school in the U.S. The different storylines kept me wanting to keep reading and it was difficult to stay away from the book in order to do the things that needed to be done. I read the book on my Kindle and the version, I had was badly formatted paragraph-wise and had several words running together at times. The writer has mentioned that a corrected version has replaced the former version, so hopefully the problems I have mentioned no longer exist. Overlooking the formatting, I loved the book and look forward to reading others by the author, David Crookes.

[June · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have honestly never read a book that took so much effort to get into...I wanted to love this story but there were way too many useless and uninteresting details about places and occurrences that overshadowed the lives of the characters depicted in the story.I was nearly half way through the book before it started to pick up and even then it was just okay!

[Tina86 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Very well written and it kept me interested the whole way through.

Unfortunately I really don’t know much about Australian history, (even though I was born and bred here) so I would be curious to know whether a lot of the circumstances were actually fact or fiction.

I recommend this book to all Aussie’s!

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoy David Crookes. He writes a lot of historical fiction about Australia, and I love the vivid pictures he paints. Once again, this was very well written, and things resolved themselves naturally. Nothing abrupt, just made sense. Of course, things don't always end well in real life, but since it needed a happy ending, I'm satisfied with the way it did.

[Jean Amico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great historical fiction

I enjoyed this story. The characters were well portrayed. I learned much of the Australian history as pertaining to the slave trade of the time. And the development of businesses involving shipping and naval protectorates.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book kinda just ended, otherwise I liked it! Historical fiction.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you can get past a lot of typos, the story is pretty good.