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Wednesday 29 July 2015

The Unforgiving Shore

The Unforgiving Shore is a novel by Gil Hogg.

It describes the lige of youthful Ellen Colbert who has cared as much as she can for her paralysed husband, so she takes the decision to move on and leaves him behind her.

She seeks work amongst the kitchen staff at Marchmont Mansion and eventually catches the eye of one of the Marchmont family itself, John Marchmont.

He whisks her off to Australia for a new and all together far more exciting life on the other side of the world.

For several idyllic months the two lovers enjoy their lives at the vast cattle station owned  by John's family. The cattle station is called Mirabilly,

But then John receives a letter from London. It describes that through several family deaths and a will that had been destroyed, John has suddenly become a very wealthy man indeed, as he is the inheritant of the vast bulk of the family fortune.

Immediately John leaves for London, leaving a distraught Ellen behind, jilted by the man she had hoped to spend the rest of her life with.

Four years later he returns to Mirabilly, he wants to pick up their relationship where he had abruptly left it, but as a now married woman, Ellen will not hear of it and tells him so in no uncertain terms.

She has her stockman husband, her son and her reputation to consider.

But then tragedy strikes and her husband is drowned in an accident.

Then the niggling doubts begin. Was her husband the father of her son, Paul? Or was John Marchmont his real father?

His mother denies it, but it eats at him. Could he be a Marchmont? The son of his mother's one time lover?

This is a compelling novel which touches on a variety of themes such as fidelity, love, the meaning of parenthood and of love and loss.

It is published by Matador at £10.99 and is available from the mazon-powered bookshop on this site.

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