Book Review: Daughter of the Murray by Darry Fraser
For author ‘F’ in my A-Z romance book challenge, I picked Darry Fraser’s Daughter of the Murray, an Aussie historical romance, which turned out to be a little bit of an odd read.
Given its title, I was expecting the main setting to be in and around the Murray River. And yes, some parts of the novel were set there in towns where, during this time setting of 1890, paddle steamers ruled. Fraser, I think, should have stuck with that. Paddle steamers are such a romantic ideal for me (blame All the Rivers Run!) so I think I would have been satisfied with that. Instead, she threw in other places, such as Port Fairy (on the Great Ocean Road) and Melbourne. It stopped me from immersing myself in the setting completely.
Our heroine, Georgie, is not the most likeable character. Her contrariness did my head in. She’s interested in women’s suffrage, riding horses, and working instead of marrying and having babies, and yet she seems to make no inroads when it comes to women’s rights or independence in the end. And, oh she hates her two suitors but she’s willing to marry them for security and sex. I can’t even…
Yes, there’s two potential suitors and they’re both annoying. There’s Dane, the prodigal son returning to the property where Georgina lives with his mother, her aunt by marriage. And there’s Conor, a rich businessman who has recently secretly won the family property from Dane’s father in a game of poker. Pretty much Conor and Dane bully and treat Georgie like a doormat, but want her for her hot body. *rolling eyes*
Just to add to this, almost all of the supporting characters are also horrid, even Dane’s parents and sister. There also seemed to be a lot of them. I wondered if some of them were featured in other Fraser books but, just glancing at the blurbs of her other titles, I can’t see that they were.
Fraser threw in a lot of conflict that was completely unnecessary too and often it didn’t even make sense. The narrative flow of the book jumped around to keep up and nearly all of the outcomes were glaringly obvious and predictable.
The other weird thing about the book was the secksy times. I was not expecting so many graphic scenes. It made me confused as to who the intended audience was. (Certainly I don’t think the cover hinted at a book with such sex scenes.)
Mmm… I would probably give this 2 ½
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