Greenstone

Greenstone Land #1

by Yvonne Kalman

The vicious murder of her mother, Evangeline, and three of her brothers and sisters haunts Juliette Peridot for twenty years until a similar event forces her to confront her mother's legacies of beauty and a dark secret

Genres: Historical Fiction

544 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Yvonne Kalman author of the blockbuster trilogy The Greenstone Land, was born in Hawera and taught for fifteen years before becoming a full-time writer in the later 1970s. Her first book was a children's animal story, Sparkles (1979), followed by Summer Rain (1980) and Midas (1983), torrid romances released only on the American mass market. She achieved international recognition when she broke into the American blockbuster market with The Greenstone Land (1981), the first of a trilogy of three historical romances set in colonial Auckland. The other two volumes in the saga were Juliette's Daughter (1982) and Riversong (1985). Bridge to Nowhere appeared in 1986, and then two further historical romances set in colonial Canterbury: Mists of Heaven (1987) and After the Rainbow (1989).

Kalman was the first New Zealand popular novelist to revive the historical romance in a major way after Edith Lyttleton (‘G. B. Lancaster’) in the 1930s, although Georgina McDonald, in Grand Hills for Sheep (1949) and Stimson's Bush (1954) had written about colonial Otago and Southland, and in the 1960s–70s Frank Bruno, James Tullett and James Sanders wrote on historical subjects in the male genre of action and adventure. Kalman's romances are colourful evocations of colonial life, laced with often lurid scenes of sex and violence, and written from the point of view of rebellious heroines struggling against the self-seeking and often brutal behaviour of the rich and powerful with whom their destinies are enmeshed. In the Greenstone Land trilogy, power is vested in the expanding Auckland business interests of a family dynasty, engaged in ruthless internecine feuds; in Mists of Heaven and its successor, in the power politics of Canterbury's ruling colonial elites. Despite their sensationalism the novels offer a richly detailed account of nineteenth-century social customs —hair and dress styles, cuisine and fashions in décor—and Juliette's Daughter in particular addresses nineteenth-century race relations with considerable sensitivity.

Reviews

[Sharyn Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book including lots of NZ history. Great family saga

[Barbara]

Heather guessed after seeing a 1997 reading log listing "Mists of Heaven by Yvonne Kalman" and seeing they had a book named Greenstone set in New Zealand.