Nearly fifty years have passed since Elizabeth last saw the colonial house in Nelson, New Zealand, where she once boarded as a young teacher in 1962. Where the Bellbird Sings takes Elizabeth back in time to her memories of the house and the peace that she felt when she heard the call of the bellbird. Now widowed and seventy years old, Elizabeth returns when she hears the house is for sale. As she is shown through the rooms, she recalls in detail what the house had been like when her great-aunts and great-uncle lived there. Elizabeth hears the bellbird sing and is comforted, as its song always represented hope and continuity. When she is told by the agent that the living room is locked because the owners are using it for storage, this link with the past makes her feel faint. As she sits outside on the verandah, she remembers why the mysterious door is locked. Where the Bellbird Sings is an intriguing family saga, a remembrance of lost love and times past, but is foremost an unforgettable story.
Where the Bellbird Sings
The “Roaring Twenties” was the era of the flappers, those bright young things who cut their hair and raised their hemlines. But for Rhoda Pritchard, growing up in a mining town in the North Island of New Zealand, life wasn’t easy. On her 11th birthday, Rhoda and her younger brothers and sisters stood by their mother’s grave. The strong-smelling white flowers surrounding the coffin ever afterwards became the smell of death to Rhoda. But she was a girl who loved life, and from an early age learned a simple way to survive. This helped her through every setback and disappointment, especially when she and the other children were sent to England without their father, accompanied only by an unmarried aunt. In the new and unfamiliar English environment, Rhoda faces every challenge with courage. Though set in the 1920s, this heart-warming story will resonate with readers today who admire a character with grit and determination.
No White Flowers, Please
When This War Is Over is the sequel to No White Flowers, Please. Rhoda Pritchard, 19 years old, has moved from Bath to Salisbury, where she becomes a nurse in a small private psychiatric hospital. There are two men in Rhoda’s life: Harold, a struggling artist, and Lawrence, a suave and handsome man. When Harold goes abroad to assist his missionary parents, friends advise Rhoda to forget him and take Lawrence who is available. Which one will she choose? The decision she comes to has far-reaching consequences for them all. Then after war is declared, all their lives are overturned.
When This War Is Over
Janice at 18 is ambitious and sets her sights on a top degree in languages, until she is swept off her feet by a clever young architect. When she finds she is pregnant Janice’s world comes crashing down – for this is pre women’s lib in New Zealand. She has no choice but to enter Sunnyvale, a home for unmarried mothers. After the baby is born the maternal tug is powerful and she longs to keep him. What should she do? Her decision is far-reaching and affects not only her child but those she is closest to. This story will resonate with many women who have had to face a similar decision. Elaine Blick was born in Salisbury, England and moved to New Zealand when she was five years old and has spent her life living between the two countries. She was a teacher and holds an MA degree from Auckland University. She has written thirteen books.
First Names Only
Grant and Debra are renovating their country cottage when they find a packet of love letters that have lain hidden behind a fireplace for over two hundred years. Debra reads them and learns the secrets of Clara, a woman married to a slave-owner in Bristol, living on the wealth of his sugar plantation in Jamaica. In the late eighteenth century there is an outcry in England against slavery in the British colonies. It is led by such people as John Wesley, who has a strong influence on William Wilberforce. Clara hears Wesley preach a scorching sermon against slavery in which he accuses all those involved in the slave trade of having blood on their hands. Deeply troubled and concerned for her husband’s eternal destiny, Clara urges him to free his slaves. As Debra reads the letters she becomes increasingly involved in Clara’s situation, so much so that her relationship with Grant takes second place. The effect on their marriage is critical.
Hearts Set Free
Miranda is a black ex-slave, now the owner of a sugar plantation in Jamaica in the late eighteenth century. Her battle to overcome prejudice and to raise the status of African slaves by teaching them to read and write makes compelling reading. Her personal struggle with an overseer who preys on black women to satisfy his sexual appetite has far-reaching consequences.
Miranda
The real and imaginary adventures of Katey, a black and white cat who lives at a beach house in New Zealand.
KATEY THE BEACH CAT was my first venture into children’s writing, yet this book seems to appeal to adults who have a taste for the whimsical. Katey tells her own story and her views on life may amuse you, especially if you have ever wondered how your pets see you and other members of the animal kingdom. There is a blend of fact and fancy running through the book for Katey has a ‘Furry Godmother’ who transforms her into Katerina, a beautiful girl – once a month when the moon is full.
Katey The Beach Cat
Rose and Peach are two very special chickens. Adopted by Tracy when they are one day old she loves them more than anything. But when Peach and Rose are sent away by her parents to live with someone else Tracy is heartbroken. Her greatest desire is to get them back and she’ll do anything to bring them home.
Rose And Peach At The Beach
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow is a travelogue with a difference. Two retired women set off in a campervan from London to tour Europe. Neither has driven a campervan before, much less had any experience driving on the right.
They journey through four countries and cover 4,000 miles, often bewildered by one-way systems and rapid changes of language, yet meeting kindness wherever they go. The women’s varied and often bizarre escapades make for entertaining reading from start to finish.
They experience being locked in an underground toilet in France, finding distant relatives in Germany quite by chance, and spending a frightening night freedom camping on the Riviera.
For those who love to read about the touring experiences of others, and are pining to get out on the open road themselves, it’s all here in this true and eccentric account.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
The pampered daughter of a wealthy man, Alice has the choice between two eligible and attractive men. But this is the era of suffragettes, and Alice is looking for satisfaction in a career rather than marriage. A succession of hard knocks changes the once spoilt beauty into a compassionate woman, willing to put others before herself in a life of service. Set against the dramatic background of the Boer War, Alice’s private story unfolds. Even in the midst of dirt, disease, and death, love is able to blossom. This epic wartime romance is played out under the South African sun.
If Only
Torn from all that is familiar and dear, Louise finds herself in Newgate, that most notorious of British prisons. Here the innocent young woman must survive amongst thieves, prostitutes, and forgers, where catfights, drunkenness, hunger, and cold are a daily reality.
But the worst is yet to come: a five-month sea journey to Botany Bay in Australia. In this male-dominated prisoner society on the other side of the world, women are regarded as a commodity, and those transported for minor crimes are treated as prostitutes.
How can any woman retain her self-respect in such a setting? Yet one group of women coming out of Newgate managed it. Under the influence of Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, a gentle Quaker, the female inmates in Newgate are taught to knit and sew, gaining confidence in themselves. Mrs. Fry also opens a school for the prison’s children.
But most important of all, the Quaker woman shares a message from the Bible so these women can face their future with hope.
Beyond the Horizon
Most women convicts sent to Australia in the early 1800s were forced into a life of servitude, where they are not only skivvies, but were mistresses of their employers as well.
How did Peggy escape this fate and become a schoolteacher instead?
Peggy was amongst a group of women convicts in London’s Newgate prison awaiting their criminal transportation to Australia. The social reformer and Quaker Mrs Elizabeth Fry visited the infamous prison, turning the whole system upside down. She taught the illiterate women to read and write, how to knit and sew, and prepared them for their new life on the other side of the world. She also gave them hope and courage to face whatever lay before them.
Once a thief and a prostitute, Peggy, now a schoolteacher, finds that in the raw young colony of New South Wales there are opportunities for those willing to work hard. The city of Sydney under Governor Macquarie offers equality to all, including convicts.
In this sequel to Beyond the Horizon, discover what the future holds for Peggy, an ambitious young woman, who is looking for more than life in a classroom.
A Shining Path
Call of the Kookaburra is the third and final book in a series following several British convict women who were transported to Australia in the 19th century.
Sent to a country with a harsh climate and environment, different in every way from what was familiar, the story relates how these women survived when they were uprooted from their homeland. Friendship grew among three women who were very different in background and temperament. Louise was from a middle-class background and was well educated. Lucy is sensitive and fearful. Peggy was born in a slum and is shrewd and streetwise. Yet all three became united under the teaching of the well-known Quaker prison reformer, Mrs Elizabeth Fry. This third book continues from A Shining Path. It begins in Bath, England, with Peggy’s wedding in Bath Abbey, where she marries a French aristocrat. The emphasis then shifts to Jane Bell, one of Peggy’s bridesmaids.
Jane is not a convict but had been sent to New South Wales by her father, a vicar, because she was an embarrassment to the family. In the small school where she is posted, Jane gets involved with the headmaster and becomes pregnant. She doesn’t tell him before he returns to England, although they become engaged the day before he sails. Jane is spared the scandal of having an illegitimate baby when her son is adopted at birth by Louise, who is now married to an officer who owns a farm outside Sydney. Jane returns to England to take care of her father who is now an invalid. When he recovers he urges Jane to return to Australia, the country she has come to love. Her life takes a completely new direction which no-one could have foreseen.
