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Book of Secrets
This historical novel recounts the life of Norman McLeod, a charismatic but domineering Scottish preacher who led a party of highlanders into exile after the clearances in Scotland. After settling in Nova Scotia and building ships, they travel to Australia, then on to New Zealand, settling in Waipu, in Northland. McLeod is a tyrant, whose behavior is challenged by three generations of women who are subsequently banished from the community. The novel looks at issues of transgression and nonconformity within a moralistic culture, the need for mutual support and the difficulties facing early pioneers.
276 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1987
22 people are currently reading
230 people want to read
About the author
Fiona Kidman
55 books66 followersFiona Kidman is a leading contemporary novelist, short story writer and poet. Much of her fiction is focused on how outsiders navigate their way in narrowly conformist society. She has published a large and exciting range of fiction and poetry, and has worked as a librarian, producer and critic. Kidman has won numerous awards, and she has been the recipient of fellowships, grants and other significant honours, as well as being a consistent advocate for New Zealand writers and literature. She is the President of Honour for the New Zealand Book Council, and has been awarded an OBE and a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to literature.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
January 5, 2018
this was a really good narrative surrounding McLeods voyages to get to nz. liked the woman characters except for Annie. the writing is excellent
October 1, 2021
This was not a book to be enjoyed as there was so much hardship and prejudice. However it is well worth the read. Her characterisation is clever - the people are well described and it is easy to be emotive about them. Some of them are intensely dislikable! The differing environments they are in are also easily imagined. Really well written.
July 12, 2016
Definitely a thought-provoking book, but perhaps it resonates because the migrants in the story followed a similar path as my ancestors (and me): Scotland, Canada, New Zealand (no Australian stops for my lineage though). Elements of the book that stood out: the abject poverty in Scotland before departure, the extreme hardship upon arriving as colonists in Canada and New Zealand, the miserable and tough lives of women, and the damaging role of religion.
November 5, 2009
one of my all time favs
i love her relationship with the old grey cat
old cats are the best
i love her relationship with the old grey cat
old cats are the best
January 27, 2013
Hard going, dull dull dull. Depressing read, need to try another of her's to see if any better.
November 26, 2019
I was looking forward to reading this because I love immigration stories and I know Waipu well. It started off good and really interesting, but then I just got bored and couldn't finish it.
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August 11, 2016“Nova Scotia had transplanted itself to the New Zealand soil so easily you wouldn’t believe it.” – Fiona Kidman, THE BOOK OF SECRETS
One idea I’ve had for a writing project is to create a narrative around the migration of Nova Scotians to Waipu Cove in 1853. Recently, I discovered this had already been done by celebrated New Zealand author, Dame Fiona Kidman, this year’s judge of the NZSA Central Districts short story competition. It was my entry into the competition that prompted me to look into what Kidman had written.
Despite feeling some dismay that my idea had already been explored, I was delighted to download and read THE BOOK OF SECRETS. The structure of the novel reminded me of The Poisonwood Bible, relating the experiences of three women with their perspectives of a significant dominant male figure in their lives. In THE BOOK OF SECRETS, these women are the grandmother, mother and daughter impacted by the Reverend Norman McLeod, each connected to the significant settings in his life: Scotland, Nova Scotia and New Zealand.
I first heard of McLeod prior to my leaving Nova Scotia. My father told me about his migration here. The man must have left quite an impact in Pictou County as well. I didn’t think much more about him until I visited Waipu some years ago – stunned at their devotion to things Nova Scotian. The main street of Waipu is called Nova Scotia Drive, the Nova Scotia flag flies in the village and they host an annual Highland Games festival each January, similar to the ones familiar to Antigonish residents.
Norman McLeod, also known as Tormod by his followers, casts a long shadow in this book and challenges me to learn more about this enigmatic historical figure. Regardless of the perception of the man presented by Kidman, which is one of a hard man, even an unstable man, McLeod must have held incredible influence over his flock. Not only did he persuade a band of them to leave their home in Scotland to settle in Nova Scotia, but after years in Pictou County he managed to pull it off again, moving another group, including many from the first, to Australia and finally to Waipu. This is where the journey ended for McLeod, but the descendants of his followers live on here today. In fact, I have a friend I met in Taumarunui who is a descendant from the Nova Scotian settlers of Waipu. I call him “Cousin Dean”.
Although THE BOOK OF SECRETS is not just about the migrations, but about the journeys, dilemmas and resilience of Isabella, her daughter Annie and her daughter Maria, I was captivated by passages describing the travel and the places with which I am familiar as my two homelands. In one passage, as the Frances Ann leaves Scotland, Kidman illustrates the charisma and sentimentality of McLeod and also touches a nerve for this emigrant:
“As the ship pulled away, McLeod, standing on the deck, broke into the old lament of McCrimmon, and in a moment the voices of everyone on board had joined with him and were soaring back across the water to the watchers on the shore—cha tille cha tille cha tille me tuilleach, return return return we never, in peace nor war return we never, with silver or gold return we never.”
It reminds me of our song, “Farewell to Nova Scotia” and my own observation that it is a real Scottish tradition to lament lost homelands. I've always wondered: Are there songs in Scotland about missing Scotland sung by people who have never left Scotland?
I was excited to read of the migrants’ arrival in Nova Scotia, as if I was arriving back home myself, despite the fact Kidman is describing my homeland centuries before I was born:
“They all turned back to watch the coastline growing larger and clearer until in late morning the ship sailed smoothly into the harbour at Pictou.”
In writing the book, Kidman travelled to Scotland and spent time in Nova Scotia. I appreciated other vivid passages about my original homeland written by this fine New Zealand author:
“So she lay on her back, a little apart from him, and told him of the dark abysses under the Nova Scotian ice, where a person might fall and never be seen again, especially if they ventured forth upon it when the spring thaw was coming; and about the way the moss smelled, coming up for air when the melting was finally over. She spoke of the wild strawberries that grew there in summer, and the sweet maple syrup that was collected under the trees; the way the rocks were worn smooth by the sea, and the way it was a harsh land, but beautiful too.”
Similarly, I anticipated the arrival of the Nova Scotians in New Zealand and Kidman’s prose did not disappoint:
“We knew this was the place for us, for we had seen it from the sea as we approached New Zealand, and it looked like the shores of Nova Scotia. Yet. Now that we are here, it is not really like that at all. It is lush, almost as I think you would imagine the tropics . . . the growth is so thick, there is no snow all year round, although a considerable amount of rain, and things just grow and grow.”
There is a tremendous loneliness in all her female protagonists and what I really appreciated about Kidman’s narrative was that it was difficult to determine how much this loneliness was created by the unsettling and resettling migrations, disconnecting each generation from the previous; or the dominance of, not only MacLeod, but other male figures; or the clash between their strong, independent personalities with the cultures of their times and places.
“It came to her then that she was different from the women who had gone before her. They had been made afraid, and denied choice through circumstances and violation, and what had happened to them had made them turn away from accepting themselves as they were. Nor had she ever made a choice of her own, acting always blindly and without thought.”
The book ends with the birth of Maria’s son who, in ironic contrast with the departed shadow of MacLeod and the ostracism of Maria, provides hope that this family line will finally find some stability in his independence in this new world of New Zealand:
“The generations were getting stronger. This boy had to be Christie’s son, and yet in an odd sort of way it hardly mattered. He didn’t look especially like anyone, except for the pale touch of copper in his skin. She sensed the vitality. He was his own person. A new kind of person, without allegiance to a particular group or race. He would make new choices.”
THE BOOK OF SECRETS is not the narrative I would have chosen to tell the story of the migration of Waipu. For me, it was exhilarating and poignant to read, but, perhaps thankfully, it did not satisfy the vision I have for writing my own version someday. Watch this space.
Antony Millen is a Nova Scotian living and writing in New Zealand. He was awarded third prize by Dame Fiona Kidman in the 2015 New Zealand Society of Authors Central Districts competition for his short story, "Aukati". He is the author of three novels: Redeeming Brother Murrihy: The River To Hiruharama, Te Kauhanga: A Tale of Space and The Chain.
One idea I’ve had for a writing project is to create a narrative around the migration of Nova Scotians to Waipu Cove in 1853. Recently, I discovered this had already been done by celebrated New Zealand author, Dame Fiona Kidman, this year’s judge of the NZSA Central Districts short story competition. It was my entry into the competition that prompted me to look into what Kidman had written.
Despite feeling some dismay that my idea had already been explored, I was delighted to download and read THE BOOK OF SECRETS. The structure of the novel reminded me of The Poisonwood Bible, relating the experiences of three women with their perspectives of a significant dominant male figure in their lives. In THE BOOK OF SECRETS, these women are the grandmother, mother and daughter impacted by the Reverend Norman McLeod, each connected to the significant settings in his life: Scotland, Nova Scotia and New Zealand.
I first heard of McLeod prior to my leaving Nova Scotia. My father told me about his migration here. The man must have left quite an impact in Pictou County as well. I didn’t think much more about him until I visited Waipu some years ago – stunned at their devotion to things Nova Scotian. The main street of Waipu is called Nova Scotia Drive, the Nova Scotia flag flies in the village and they host an annual Highland Games festival each January, similar to the ones familiar to Antigonish residents.
Norman McLeod, also known as Tormod by his followers, casts a long shadow in this book and challenges me to learn more about this enigmatic historical figure. Regardless of the perception of the man presented by Kidman, which is one of a hard man, even an unstable man, McLeod must have held incredible influence over his flock. Not only did he persuade a band of them to leave their home in Scotland to settle in Nova Scotia, but after years in Pictou County he managed to pull it off again, moving another group, including many from the first, to Australia and finally to Waipu. This is where the journey ended for McLeod, but the descendants of his followers live on here today. In fact, I have a friend I met in Taumarunui who is a descendant from the Nova Scotian settlers of Waipu. I call him “Cousin Dean”.
Although THE BOOK OF SECRETS is not just about the migrations, but about the journeys, dilemmas and resilience of Isabella, her daughter Annie and her daughter Maria, I was captivated by passages describing the travel and the places with which I am familiar as my two homelands. In one passage, as the Frances Ann leaves Scotland, Kidman illustrates the charisma and sentimentality of McLeod and also touches a nerve for this emigrant:
“As the ship pulled away, McLeod, standing on the deck, broke into the old lament of McCrimmon, and in a moment the voices of everyone on board had joined with him and were soaring back across the water to the watchers on the shore—cha tille cha tille cha tille me tuilleach, return return return we never, in peace nor war return we never, with silver or gold return we never.”
It reminds me of our song, “Farewell to Nova Scotia” and my own observation that it is a real Scottish tradition to lament lost homelands. I've always wondered: Are there songs in Scotland about missing Scotland sung by people who have never left Scotland?
I was excited to read of the migrants’ arrival in Nova Scotia, as if I was arriving back home myself, despite the fact Kidman is describing my homeland centuries before I was born:
“They all turned back to watch the coastline growing larger and clearer until in late morning the ship sailed smoothly into the harbour at Pictou.”
In writing the book, Kidman travelled to Scotland and spent time in Nova Scotia. I appreciated other vivid passages about my original homeland written by this fine New Zealand author:
“So she lay on her back, a little apart from him, and told him of the dark abysses under the Nova Scotian ice, where a person might fall and never be seen again, especially if they ventured forth upon it when the spring thaw was coming; and about the way the moss smelled, coming up for air when the melting was finally over. She spoke of the wild strawberries that grew there in summer, and the sweet maple syrup that was collected under the trees; the way the rocks were worn smooth by the sea, and the way it was a harsh land, but beautiful too.”
Similarly, I anticipated the arrival of the Nova Scotians in New Zealand and Kidman’s prose did not disappoint:
“We knew this was the place for us, for we had seen it from the sea as we approached New Zealand, and it looked like the shores of Nova Scotia. Yet. Now that we are here, it is not really like that at all. It is lush, almost as I think you would imagine the tropics . . . the growth is so thick, there is no snow all year round, although a considerable amount of rain, and things just grow and grow.”
There is a tremendous loneliness in all her female protagonists and what I really appreciated about Kidman’s narrative was that it was difficult to determine how much this loneliness was created by the unsettling and resettling migrations, disconnecting each generation from the previous; or the dominance of, not only MacLeod, but other male figures; or the clash between their strong, independent personalities with the cultures of their times and places.
“It came to her then that she was different from the women who had gone before her. They had been made afraid, and denied choice through circumstances and violation, and what had happened to them had made them turn away from accepting themselves as they were. Nor had she ever made a choice of her own, acting always blindly and without thought.”
The book ends with the birth of Maria’s son who, in ironic contrast with the departed shadow of MacLeod and the ostracism of Maria, provides hope that this family line will finally find some stability in his independence in this new world of New Zealand:
“The generations were getting stronger. This boy had to be Christie’s son, and yet in an odd sort of way it hardly mattered. He didn’t look especially like anyone, except for the pale touch of copper in his skin. She sensed the vitality. He was his own person. A new kind of person, without allegiance to a particular group or race. He would make new choices.”
THE BOOK OF SECRETS is not the narrative I would have chosen to tell the story of the migration of Waipu. For me, it was exhilarating and poignant to read, but, perhaps thankfully, it did not satisfy the vision I have for writing my own version someday. Watch this space.
Antony Millen is a Nova Scotian living and writing in New Zealand. He was awarded third prize by Dame Fiona Kidman in the 2015 New Zealand Society of Authors Central Districts competition for his short story, "Aukati". He is the author of three novels: Redeeming Brother Murrihy: The River To Hiruharama, Te Kauhanga: A Tale of Space and The Chain.
August 22, 2018
I liked Isabella and flew through the first part of this book--didn't much like either (especially) Annie or Maria, and the latter 2/3rds of the book was more of a chore to get through. Also, I find books about domineering male religious leaders (especially Christian, as that is what I am) difficult to read (like The Poisonwood Bible). That said, books that are difficult to read, emotionally as well as intellectually, can still be important, and I suspect this one will live within me for a long time. I don't think I was supposed to like Annie (especially) and Maria, and as I tell my students, suspending dislike and learning about and from both characters and people is an important skill. After all, none of us are supremely likeable all the time. And those domineering religious leaders--they have existed and continue to exist, both within and without the church, and I need to sit with the stories of those who have been affected by them. By the end of the book, I even began to suspect that it was less about the warping effect of such people and the back-and-forth generational search for identity by self-assertion or group conformity, and more about the connections that endure and go forward, even at our most disconnected. Plus, as an American, I'm familiar with immigration stories from Europe to the US, but Scotland-Canada-New Zealand--that, too, expanded my world.
April 11, 2021
I was excited to pick up this book as this novel describes the extraordinary story of the Scottish preacher's journey around the world to finally settle in Waipu (NZ), a place that I love and where I like to spend some R&R time. The people of Waipu are very proud of their heritage, they celebrate every year organising a Caledonian festival with Scottish music, dances and highland games. They even have a small museum dedicated to the settlers.
Unfortunately the author’s writing style, gloomy and disjointed, wasn’t my cup of tea and made the reading hard going for me. I rarely abandon a book but sadly I decided to put this book aside at about half way. Very disappointing That I couldn't finish it as I am very much interested in the topic and would love to learn more.
DNF @ 55%
Unfortunately the author’s writing style, gloomy and disjointed, wasn’t my cup of tea and made the reading hard going for me. I rarely abandon a book but sadly I decided to put this book aside at about half way. Very disappointing That I couldn't finish it as I am very much interested in the topic and would love to learn more.
DNF @ 55%
March 3, 2020
Great book, loved it, nz history and women and families and races. Thank you Fiona. I haven't really liked Dame Fiona's other books I have read - too dark and negative about women (true enough, but I don't want to read about it). But this one I liked very much.
October 23, 2025
A captivating story of early settlers to NZ. These women endured some pretty horrific situations domineered by men. The women's resilience was inspiring, as was the never-ending care and support under immensely difficult times whilst navigating their own health challenges in a new country.
May 16, 2017
I read this several years ago and was fascinated by the intricacies of the story line.
September 7, 2018
"I ask myself, if I am the rib of man, why does he inflict so much pain upon me? Doesn't he, therefore, suffer it too?" - Page 203.
November 7, 2018
great but grim
August 3, 2019
Histoire à huit clos avec une fin que je trouve décevante.
February 7, 2020
This book was beautifully written and had a loveky maloncolic feel to it.
March 1, 2020
I just loved this book! A must read!
June 27, 2020
I was interested in this book as my ancestors were some of the migrants to Waipu. I enjoyed most of it but it lost me towards the end.
May 21, 2013
I read this book a few years ago, shortly after we moved to Waipu where we remained for some six or so years. It's a riveting tale by a talented writer and it gives great insight into the history of the township and its cultural makeup. I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys historical reading and/or as background reading for anyone who intends travelling in New Zealand, particularly in Northland.
December 15, 2013
This book gives some insight into the Scottish settlers of Waipu, why they left Scotland, then Nova Scotia to finally end up at Waipu. Norman McLeod is comes out as a thoroughly unpleasant man, but he must have had huge charisma too. A tad dreary at times, and a bit disjointed.
August 6, 2011
It was a haunting sort of book, witha fabulous eery illustration on the glossy front cover. I judged the book by it's cover, and loved it.
May 18, 2013
I read this book years ago - time to get it off the shelf and reread.
Currently reading
April 11, 2015ok so far. interesting with the different parts and narrators
September 25, 2013
How distressingly captivating her life must have been. To have lived do long with the ghosts and abandonment.
October 1, 2013
I was fascinated to discover the museum (and the cemetary) at Waipu, and the stories of Norman McLeod. This book has me rethinking a few things - I need to go back...
February 27, 2014
Interesting book where the tale ends in New Zealand.
January 16, 2017
Pre-goodreads
August 11, 2008
A good yarn but very dark and dreary.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews