ACRBA Review: Tangled Secrets by Carol Preston

4 - 8 March

Australian Christian Readers Blog Alliance

is introducing

Tangled Secrets

(Even Before Publishing Sept 2012)

by

Carol Preston

Available at Amazon for $1.99 for the month of March

About the Author

Carol lives in Wollongong, NSW with her husband, Neil. As well as writing novels based on her family history, Carol has a private counselling practice and enjoys reading, gardening, spending time with her four grandchildren and bushwalking. She has pursued with great admiration the lives of her ancestors in Australia and has greatly enjoyed writing novels based on their stories and the inspiring history of the Australian people. For more information about Carol's books and her other interests she can be contacted on her website: www.carolpreston.com.au

 

About the book

In tragic circumstances Beth and her brothers are left in England to grow up without their parents. When Beth's childhood dream to be reunited with her father in Australia finally eventuates she finds that dreams do not always come true.The reality she faces is a tangled web of disappointment, deceit and mistakes. Further abandonment follows. Will she ever find true love? And will she discover she doesn't have to be alone before it is too late? Set in the early colonial days of New South Wales and based on real characters in the mid 1800s.Revisit Charlotte and Thomas from Charlotte's Angel and Mary's Guardian, and meet new characters in this new novel by Carol Preston. Mary's Guardian was a finalist in the fiction section of CALEB 2011.

My Review

Beth’s father was transported to Australia when she was just a small child, and now she is eighteen, he has sent for her and her two younger brothers to join him in his new home. Beth has hopes that they will be able to live together as a family, but this is not to be, and she instead marries William, a strange man who has some deep problems of his own. Estranged from her family by distance and secrets, she has to learn to fend for herself in this strange and harsh new land. 

 

Tangled Secrets is the third book in the series that began with Mary's Guardian and Charlotte's Angel. The stories are fictionalised accounts of real historical people and events, a result of Carol Preston’s personal family history research (which explains why so many of the characters are confusingly called Elizabeth or William). Although there are a number of characters from the earlier books, this story can easily be read as a stand-alone novel. It gives an excellent depiction of the struggles of the early Australian immigrants, especially the ex-convicts, and has a strong Christian message about the ways family secrets and lies can affect us.

 

Thanks to Even Before for providing a free ebook for review.