Moonlight and the Pearler's Daughter: An Atmospheric Historical Mystery With a Courageous Heroine Intent on the Truth

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As she did with Nancy Wake in Code Name Hélène (2020), Lawhon creates a stirring portrait of a real-life heroine and, as in all her books, includes an endnote with detailed background. It is 1886, and a 10 year old Eliza has sailed from England to Bannin Bay in Western Australia with her parents, older brother Thomas, Uncle Willem and Aunt Martha. But in a town teeming with corruption, prejudice and blackmail, Eliza soon learns that the truth can cost more than pearls, and she must decide just how much she is willing to pay – and how far she is willing to go – to find it . In 1861, the largest known species of pearl oyster, Pinctada maxima, was found in bulk off the northern coast of Western Australia.

Lizzie Pook’s novel about a young woman in the 19th-century outback, “Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter,” examines the perils — moral, physical and otherwise — of the pearling industry. Lizzie Pook's exquisite prose tugged me in and held me in the eye of the storm, my fingers tightly crossed for Eliza. The story of Eliza’s journey to find the truth of her father’s disappearance is not the strength of the story.

The cast of supporting characters is fairly large and includes several interestingly complex examples, both compelling and odious alike but it’s the details that I loved most; the little tidbits and interesting anecdotes peppered throughout really breath life into Bannin Bay. Her father is a pearl master, her brother works by his side, and Eliza is alone when they go on their ten week pearling expeditions. The society ladies of Bannin cling to a puritanism, although their setting renders such primness absurd.

In her debut novel, Pook introduces us to Eliza Brightwell, a pearler’s daughter living in the fictional Bannin Bay of Western Australia.I wish the author had paid more attention to the interior lives of her characters, especially Eliza, whose outline as a daring feminist is promising. At the train station where Jews are being jammed into cattle cars bound for Auschwitz, Udo gives Nico a yellow star to wear and persuades him to whisper among the crowd, “I heard it from a German officer. Beautifully immersive and undeniably moving, Lizzie Pook’s Australian Centred, historical debut was an absolutely breathtaking read!

Ten years later and Charles Brightwell, now the bay’s most prolific pearler, goes missing from his ship while out at sea. I appreciated how the author acknowledged the atrocities that were perpetuated upon the Indigenous Australians, especially in the context of the pearling industry.Interspersed in the narrative is Charlie's journal, from which Eliza seeks clues as to what might have happened. If you’re a fan of historical fiction and nature (more particularly aquatic life or sea(side) settings), this one is definitely for you! I think the sensibilities of the author and myself wildly differ, and for this reason, I doubt I will read more of her work. This is billed as a feminist adventure story in that the main character is Eliza Brightwell who is a pearler’s daughter.