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Hobsons' Chance, Jenny Haworth
Hazard Press
Reviewed by Heather Ramsay (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)
Hobsons' Chance is fiction, but the story is based around real events and people from a controversial period of New Zealand history – the arrival of Captain William Hobson and the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Christchurch author Jenny Haworth did extensive research on the period, so I thought the book would be quite heavy going. The prologue (written word-for-word from a visitation Haworth had from a Maori who was hung for murder in 1842) supports this, but the opening chapters almost read like formulaic romance writing.
Anita Hobson, sister of Captain William, is the feisty heroine who is forced to forsake her Irish fiance, Dr O'Neill, and flee to England. She takes a governess position with the kindly-but-not-very-exciting journalist Thomas Matthews, and meets the wealthy Mr Pethrington, who seeks to give her a life of luxury at his family estate.
Romance readers will recognise this pattern, but fortunately the story and characters quickly progress, with Haworth painting realistic backgrounds of social and political conditions in England, Australia and New Zealand. She develops and strengthens (or weakens) real characters from history, and creates believable but fictional support characters who inhabit our own landscape.
The rest of the novel follows Anita's quest for love and a new life down under. In a nutshell, she shuns Pethrington's riches and remains a governess, taking sole responsibility for the child when Matthews mysteriously disappears. She travels to Australia and New Zealand in search of Matthews and O'Neill – whom she believes have been transported as convicts.
Her personal story is interwoven with that of her brother, who is appointed Governor of New Zealand. He is charged with maintaining an uneasy peace between tribes and settlers, and bringing unity and British justice to the fledgling colony.
Despite the development of various characters and serious themes, I followed the romance thread most avidly (what happened to Mr Pethrington and why didn't he follow Anita to the ends of the earth?!) But that's probably just proof that I've read too many love stories lately.