Having finished reading A Great Act of Love by Heather Rose (Allen & Unwin, 2025), set mainly in the 1800s, it occurs to me that its style is like that of Petrus van der Valden’s paintings of about the same time: dramatic, thickly layered and full of pathos. The extracts of poems, most notably Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, add to this impression.

The ‘big picture’ of the book is how fortunes can be overturned or reversed, you can end up in immense suffering, undergo incredible dangers, discover ways to survive all hardships and remain enriched in mind even in death. Sounds a bit grim, and I suppose it is, yet beneath our comfortable lives are the unknown lives of our ancestors who endured and perhaps reinvented themselves to build a life from which we have unknowingly benefited. This is what the author found when her sister uncovered stories of their ancestors stretching from the French revolution, to Scotland and London, then on to Van Diemen’s Land – now Tasmania – where the author lives. The story could hardly be less dramatic considering the trajectory it covers and just stops short of crossing the line from expressive to over-written. Imaginative and well-researched (the details could inspire you to set up your own apothecary’s shop or become a wine maker) this work of historical fiction is gripping and impressive in its breadth.