THE ORPHANS
Fiona McIntosh
Storm Publishing
March 21, 2025
434 pages
Goodreads | Bookshop.org | Amazon
This is a wonderful old-timey historical novel. It’s a story that draws the reader in. Great storyline and characters. The setting is Australia, starting in 1913, moving forward into the 1930s.
I have to admit, while the beginning was focused on the sheep industry, I was not really that interested in it. It described the shearing of the sheep and the grading of the wool. The workaday world of an Australian sheep station complete with the colourful workers. I found this first part a little drawn out but it introduced us to Tom and Fleur, as children, but they are the main characters that the story focuses on. The meeting as children was to continue as an adult relationship, full of drama.
One of the principal settings is a mortuary, owned by Fleur’s father. Fleur grows up there and is very comfortable with the process of preparing the deceased for burial. It might be a trigger for some readers. The mortuary is central to the story.
Fleur is a very strong and innovative woman for the era in the book. She has excellent business sense, compassion and the ability to love strong.
The story has villains, a couple of vicious and nasty villains. That’s what makes me think of this as an old-fashioned story. They are characters the reader loves to hate. The story moves at a good pace to keep readers interested. There is deception, murder, evil and love. As I mentioned, there is a lot of drama, but that is what kept me turning pages. I was hoping that it was moving toward the conclusion that I wanted to see. The orphan theme plays a large part in the story.
I think this would make an excellent movie. The Australian setting would provide beautiful scenery and a well-written script could be very interesting.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the Advance Reader’s Copy.
Leave a Reply