Jill Blee is a remarkable woman: born in Ballarat where she now lives again, she is a ‘late bloomer’ as an author after a very varied career in Melbourne and Sydney. From an old article in The Age, I’ve learned that after school she trained as an industrial chemist, but like many women of her generation, she gave up work to have a family. When her marriage broke down she started a picture framing business, then sold insurance, and then was a factory manager. At 35 when her youngest started school, she started an arts degree, and – her interest in history fired by helping her children with projects – she went on to complete two Master of Arts degrees and a PhD, working as a live-in boarding-school housemistress so that she could study by day. And at 50 she began to write. I’ve previously reviewed Brigid (1999) and The Liberator’s Birthday (2002), and … without knowing it was Blee’s work as an historical researcher that I was watching, I’ve also seen some of the Doctor Blake Mysteries, set in Ballarat!

The Pines Hold Their Secrets (1988) is her first novel. It’s historical fiction, set on Norfolk Island during its period as a notorious penal settlement. Elise Cartwright travels with her family from the penal settlement in Hobart to Norfolk Island where her father – transferring under some unspecified cloud – has accepted a lesser position as Superintendent of Agriculture. He had been one of the most important men in Van Diemen’s Land and his silly wife is very conscious of her social position, fussing over frocks and what’s ‘appropriate’ and always manoeuvring to ensure that her three daughters marry well. Elise, an independent minded young woman in her early twenties, chafes at the social niceties and thus comes into brief contact with a convict called O’Shaughnessy while they are on board the Porpoise.

On Norfolk Island Elise is haunted by O’Shaughnessy’s enigmatic plea for help to prove his innocence, but can’t do anything about it. And despite Mrs Cartright’s best efforts to shield herself and her girls from anything unpleasant, before long all kinds of horrors are revealed, all reasonably consistent with what we know of Australia’s history as a penal colony. While there are a couple of rather melodramatic moments that test credulity as the novel reaches its climax, the plot rattles along quite well and the characters are generally well-drawn.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/02/13/the-pines-hold-their-secrets-by-jill-blee/ ( )