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The Latest Novel from Kate Stirling

Beautiful Front Cover from Kate Stirling’s Latest Novel

Western Lights

Excerpt
At a time when things were very unsettled in Britain, Edgar Walker’s fortunes and his popularity rose dramatically, then just as suddenly dropped. Before long he found a need to move his little family to another land, namely New Zealand. Here he settled happily and set about fulfilling his dreams for their future. Then comes a fascinating history of changes and developments, with new ideas, new situations and new people to fill his every need.

1833 abolition of slavery in UK, was repealed but still effective. Abolition of slavery again became a big issue. Plantation workers were all slaves kidnapped from usually African homelands. Entire villages, even tribes were wiped out.

By 1880 in England, families were divided by differing opinions. Social standing, once bolstered by the money made from slavery, now became shameful as the younger generation developed their own agendas. The Government agreed to pay out per head of slaves to either free them or pay them a small wage.

Edgar Walker moved to a new land where he could develop his skills as an entrepreneur just as he changed his whole world. An ex slaver he returned to his early plans and found different aims to plan and stimulate his life. As they grew older, his family each took their own pathway to the future.

 When Chloe Mainwell, the pampered only child of an ambitious British politician goes to France for her debut into society, she discovers life to be far more unbelievable than she could ever have imagined. After marrying ‘under a cloud’, her arrival in New Zealand at the turn of the 20th century leaves her in no doubt of how different, or how difficult, life can be. Yates’ Landing is a romantic novel set on the Kaipara Harbour against a background of historical events such as Women’s Emancipation, Halley’s Comet, the sinking of the Titanic, World War 1 and the influenza epidemic which devastated much of the country. The Whangarei-born author has captured the essence of a fascinating district and its place in New Zealand history in this, the first of three books set in the north.

Extract From Yates Landing:

1895

In the gloom of a London bedroom, a deep voice rumbled softly.

‘I wish you would reconsider. I am unhappy about her going to Amee. Surely she could do as well here in England?’ 
‘Now Charles, we have been through all this before. I think you are making mountains out of molehills.’ Edwina thumped her pillow into a more comfortable shape. ‘Unless you can tell me positively why you dislike Claude, she shall go.’‘ 

I wish I could tell you positively, Edwina, my dear, but I don’t know exactly. I only remember it was something unsavoury.’  A candle glowed to life and Edwina sat up abruptly,‘Rumours! Surely you are not going to hold her back because of rumours from so many years ago. His daughters are said to be delightful; and I understand Rolf is about to finish at the Sorbonne. Claude cannot be too bad if he can produce such clever children. Besides, it’s all arranged.’‘Could she not go to your sister Sophia’s? ’‘ 

Good heavens, NO!’ Sophia has no more idea of bringing up a daughter than flying to the moon!  All she can think of is her paintings, her arty friends.  As for that sculptor husband of hers – well!  Sophia should be ashamed of herself for allowing such goings on with a vulnerable child in the house.’‘I did not think she was all that bad. After all, there are some very artistic people who. . . ‘‘We don’t want to expose Chloe to that influence; all those live artistic models; ‘cousins’ he calls them, as if anyone believed such nonsense and Annabel spends all her summers at some beach with goodness knows what types. No, definitely, she must go to Amee! ’‘No good will come of it, I just know it.’ he muttered, ‘Why must you be so. determined?’‘Anyone would think she was going away forever! Now, really, Charles, stop making a fuss and go to sleep.’

He sighed and tried to get his mind back to the meeting he had attended that evening. As he began to doze off Edwina mumbled, ‘You will have to escort her to France.  I can’t spare Vera and there is no-one else. ’‘You know I hate sea travel!’‘Surely you don’t mind doing such a little thing for your own child, Charles! When I think of all the time I have spent getting things organized for her.’  

Charles burrowed down into the covers, already defeated by her clever way of putting things.

The trilogy is set in the beautiful Kaipara harbour – as a boxed set of 3 books that cover important moments in New Zealand’s history. The trilogy comprises Yates Landing, Thunder Children and Shark Harbour combined in a beautiful, hand-crafted boxed set making an ideal gift.

When Archaeologist Angus Corrie made a commitment to a small boy, he had no idea how challenging it would become.Corrie’s Gold is set between the black sands of the Taranaki west coast and the rocks of Northland’s volcanoes in New Zealand.

Extract

Autumn 1980

It had taken archeologist Angus Corrie quite a while to get his dates finalised but at last he was on his way to a site he had often visited with students over the years. As always, he looked forward to the energy the students produced. This would be one of the last few trips as autumn replaced the heat of summer.

When they arrived, he switched the van off and sat back. It had been a long journey and he was ready to stop; get out in that bracing wind and stretch his legs. Through the wet wind-screen he could see the tide was well out, the rocks black and shiny from the rain and the sea water. Sea birds straggled along, feathers flicking in the stiff breeze as they poked for small creatures amongst the loose rocks. Wet and cold or dry and hot, they still had to eat and their food was always there waiting.

The river was quiet this time though it could become a raging torrent that scoured new paths to the sea. Then it would strip another layer of sediment from between the larger rocks and leave ever more small fan shaped fossils exposed upon the dark sand. These layers upon layers of monotis were a Triassic-period shellfish that presaged the Jurassic Era of dinosaur fame. At some stage the sea floor must have been completely covered by them, their scallop shaped shells clustered together in the grey mud. Once again he wondered if they had been a plague or how they managed to live in such vast numbers.

At one side of the river rough, sharp grass grew close to the edge of the sand-hills where cattle grazed, but on the other side where Corrie stood, the scene was quite different. Here, row upon row of thin petrified rocks piled atop each other and stretched out into the water, like fingers clinging to the land as time slipped by.

Her memories of her childhood on the wretched gum-fields of the Northern Wairoa have a lasting effect on the original Thunder Child, Jessica Jackson. An only child who loses her mother at a very early age, she grows up obsessed with feelings of poverty and loss. Her efforts to protect her own children from such deprivation become her downfall; her strong character leading her into strife along the way as she tries to influence events that are actually beyond her control. Thunder Children is set on the Kaipara Harbour and the surrounding districts against a background of New Zealand history.

Extract

The winter of 1936 was a hard one, with continuous frosts and then rain, every day for weeks. Later, as the spring came there would be thunder storms and floods but now it was simply cold. The gum-fields of the Kaipara were not pleasant, even in good weather but in winter, they were abysmally bleak and miserable.

In a sheltered hollow, high above flood water levels, a solitary whare, a shack, stood surrounded by heavy fog that muffled sounds and cast an air of mystery around the place. Inside the punga walls a family slept fitfully, the cold seeping almost into their bones. Even the birds, usually so prolific and noisy were still huddled out of the cold.

In the gloom, six year old Jessica sat up slowly on her rough sacking hammock and peered through the early morning gloom at her parents’ bed. Her father’s form was barely discernible behind the bulk of her pregnant mother.

The wind whispered in through the cracks in the punga log wall as the child quietly pulled the thick coat closer round her shoulders and tried to find a comfortable spot in the hammock. The old grey blanket that covered the sacking had slipped down in the night and now formed a hard ridge in the middle. She tugged futilely at the blanket then curled herself into a ball, avoiding the ridge and squinting dreamily at a chink of light in the punga frond thatch roof.

‘Come on, you two! Time to get moving! A lot of work to be done today.’

William Jackson’s voice snapped her wide awake. For all his rough tone her father’s voice was gentle. He climbed out of bed, ruffled his wife’s hair and gave Jessica a light tap on the rump as he passed her hammock. Jessica yawned hugely and he protested, ‘Good grief, child, put a hand in front of your mouth when you yawn! I can see what you had for dinner last night! It’s still all in a heap down there!’

She smiled blearily at him, shivering in the half light as her mother dragged herself wearily from her bed. Caroline pushed back a mane of hair and went to the fireplace where she stirred the embers before adding a few sticks. Jessica stood close to the warm ashes and peered up the gap between the whare walls and the free standing corrugated iron chimney that towered above her, smoke already curling from its top and staining the early morning fog. At night, she could sometimes see the stars through this gap but now all was white outside.