An epic Australian love story that spans the decades. Cheated of her birthright Kitty must struggle to forge a new life in a new land. The first book in the Redwoods trilogy
The Redwoods series is a sweeping saga of romance, intrigue, and adventure, spanning many decades in a time when women have few choices, and life, and love, are not easy.
It is often a spur-of-the-moment decision that can become a turning point in life.
So it is for Kitty Morland, a young woman in London in 1878.
Cheated of her birthright and condemned to a soul-destroying existence, Kitty yields to temptation one fateful day and commits a desperate, perhaps criminal, act. Realisation of its possible terrifying consequences forces her to flee to the other side of the world, to Australia, taking her widowed mother, Bella, with her.
Fearful that her past will catch up with her she marries William, an English aristocrat, and moves from Sydney to Redwoods in Bulahdelah, a remote logging area in the mid north of New South Wales – a place of red-cedar forests, wild rivers, and the loneliness of an early settlement.
Kitty needs all her courage and determination to survive a loveless marriage, dominated by a husband with a dark side to his character.
She realises too late that the passion she feels for Rufe Cavanagh, a charismatic and entrepreneurial colonial, is reciprocated.
Kitty finally has a chance for love and happiness but, torn between love and duty, she must make a difficult decision that will affect the lives of others. How will she decide?
Excerpt
Kitty headed for the stairs. As she reached the study, the snoring was still loud, the door ajar. Pausing, she turned and pushed the door open and looked inside. The master of the house sprawled in his armchair, fast asleep.
Moving into the room she stood looking down at him, hands clenched at her sides. This was the man she blamed for her father’s death, and her own present circumstances. George Arnold. How she hated him.
Kitty stared down at him, filled with loathing. Middle age was upon him and his once muscular body showed signs of fat. Slouched down in the chair, his flushed face slumped on his chest, and his legs stuck out straight in front of him. One arm rested along the arm of the chair, and the other hung limply across the front of his body. His slack mouth sagged open and his snores were loud and rhythmic. This was the man who had shattered her life
****
As Kitty watched Arnold now, sprawled in the chair, he stirred in his sleep, snorted, and flung his arm away from his body and out to his side. Perhaps he was about to wake up. Not caring if he saw her standing there, she stood her ground.
His arm fell onto the top of a small table standing by the chair, before he settled down again. His hand had just missed the half-empty glass of port standing on the table, but it had knocked over a small chamois pouch sitting near it. A stream of diamonds spilled out on to the table as the pouch toppled sideways.
Kitty stared at the jewels as they glittered in the lamplight, drawing in her breath sharply. Why, there must be thousands of pounds worth in the pouch. He’d obviously brought them home with him from his jewelry shop and fallen asleep with them beside him.
The past raced through her mind...
Their house in Hampstead, with its large grounds and handsome furnishings, had been sold over their heads, along with most of their possessions. Even her mother’s jewelry, much of which had been left to her by her own mother, had been taken by the bailiffs, deemed, by law, to be her husband’s property. They learned later that George Arnold had bought most of their possessions for a fraction of their worth.
Kitty and her mother had been forced to move into two rooms over the top of a draper’s shop in Bloomsbury, where her mother took in sewing and embroidery to earn a pittance to live on...
Now, here was George Arnold, still living in luxury. And tomorrow she would be forced to return to the two rooms with her mother. Without a character she would be unable to find another position. The meager amount her mother earned could never sustain them. She trembled as she contemplated their future. What was to become of them?
Kitty stared at the diamonds, winking up at her. Biting her lip, she picked one up. Turning it around in her fingers, she watched the changing colors as the facets reflected the light. How much would it be worth?
She didn’t know, but guessed it would be enough to keep the two of them in food for months, maybe a year or more. And there must be dozens in the bag.
Looking around guiltily, she put it back with the others. There was no sound apart from the snoring.
Going to the door, Kitty looked out. No one was in sight. The servants would all be downstairs, hoping they were finished for the night. Moving back to the table, she stood there again, looking, her heart pounding. Slowly, she reached down and stood the bag upright again. A scatter of diamonds remained on the table.
Kitty watched the sleeping man, thinking how easy it would be to help herself to the spilled diamonds. If she took them, wouldn’t she only be repaying a fraction of what Arnold stole from her father?
She took a step back. No, she couldn’t.
Then a picture of her mother, bent over her sewing in that cold and dingy room in Bloomsbury, flashed through her mind. Followed immediately by one of this mans wife, sitting by the fire. Wearing her mother’s jewels. Abruptly, she leaned over, scooped up the loose diamonds, and slipped them into her pocket.
The blood pounded in her ears. Fleeing from the room, she sped along the hall to the bottom of the stairs. Pausing, she looked around. Was that the downstairs door closing as she turned? Had she really seen it, or was it her guilty conscience playing tricks on her?
Turning, she hurried up the stairs to her room on the third floor.
Once inside, she closed the door and placed a chair beneath the knob to keep it firmly shut. Kitty sat on the bed drawing in deep mouthfuls of air. Taking the diamonds from her pocket with shaking fingers she examined them. There were twenty-six in all, of varying sizes and shapes, gleaming brilliantly on her bed. If she kept them and sold them, it would replace some of what Arnold had taken from them. It would give her and her mother a new start.
But what if Arnold woke and realized some of the diamonds were missing? A cold knot of fear twisted inside her. What would he do? Had he counted them before he fell asleep? Did he have a record at the shop of what he had taken home?
If they were missed, would she be suspected?
Perhaps someone saw her come out of the study. Perhaps she would be searched.
Kitty looked around the room. Where could she hide them? And what if her case was searched before she left in the morning? How was she to get them safely out of the house? Her glance settled on the glass of water on her bedside table.
Drawing a deep breath, she picked it up.
Very deliberately, she placed a diamond on her tongue, took a mouthful of water and gulped it down, then repeated it, one by one, until the diamonds were all gone.
****
Professional Reviews
An Independent Woman
WHAT HISTORICAL FICTION DOES BEST
In An Independent woman, Kate Loveday does what historical fiction does best: letting us, the readers, live another life in a time and place that was. In this novel, that is late-Nineteenth Century Australia, a land just being settled, half civilized, half wild. Into this setting sails Kitty Morland, a determined young woman fleeing loss of social status and a desperate, perhaps criminal act in England. In Australia, she contracts an apparently advantageous marriage that brings her to a mansion amid the remote logging country of Bulahdelah. In that setting, tragically, she learns of the darkness in her once-attractive husband and learns that, even half a world away from England, she cannot escape her past there.
Ms. Loveday's novel has everything for which one could ask in a historical novel: clear, compelling prose; engaging, well-drawn characters who mirror their place and time; and a complex, fast-moving plot involving domestic tragedy, diamonds, the perils of a logging camp and of a gold-mining town, a love banned by the time's laws of marriage, and a crime with results that span years and half a world. All of these elements take place in a vividly realized setting of frontier Australia with frontier Sydney, immense, exotic forests, wild rivers, and the loneliness of pioneer settlements. These make A Woman of Spirit a novel that will tempt you to read it in a single setting.
An Independent Woman reviewed by Alice Kent
An Independent woman (Redwoods Trilogy Book One: A Romantic Novel.)
2 of 3 people found the following helpful
Oh what a tangled web we weave- Sir Walter Scott
I am a reader of new-indie authors and I found out about Kate Loveday through a great mystery/crime Australian author which I say thank you too :>)
I am very fussy at what type of historical books I read but this historical suspense by Kate Loveday is the exception to the rule. When I read that this historical story was taking place in Australia back in 1878 I immediately hit the - Buy now- button.
I love reading stories from the 1870 era because that was my grandparents era. It fascinates me to see how lives were lived back then compared to how things have changed in the past 134 years. Their law's back then gave a husband total control of his wife and how ever they treated a woman was ok. As a woman had no rights but to obey her husband or you were punished. As you will see Kitty is a very independent smart caring strong woman. You can't help but become attached to her and her strength's.
This story grabbed me from the beginning to the end. Kate did her homework with the history of Australia. Kate's character descriptions were short and right on target which made visualizing them easy and made me feel like I was standing right next to them and living as they did.
Kitty needed a job to help support her and her mother Bella because they lost everything they owned, their house, all their family jewelry and their furniture after Mr. Morland died.
Kitty Morland went to work for a rich family, Mr. and Mrs. George Arnold in London 1878 to help support and give her Mum Bella a better life. Kitty's brother and his buddy went to find gold in the mines to help out also.
Kitty lost her job with the Arnolds because they accused her of breaking a very expensive vase which she was not guilty of.
Kitty did something that allowed her and her Mum to get on a ship and go to Sydney and after a while they went to a logging industry in Bulahdelah, Australia. Which is where I would love to have lived from reading Kate's descriptions. Lots of Cedar trees, no neighbors, very quiet and peaceful with all kinds of beautiful birds and animals around you. Serenity everywhere. Ahhhh....
I won't give any more information as I do not want to spoil anything for you. The book's description in the Kindle store will let you know what this book is about for sure. This is a must read for those of you who love Australia and want to learn what living was like back in the 1878 era or for any reader who loves a historical romance from the 1878 era. The romance descriptions were not overly descriptive , plain and simple and one can use there imagination.
Ms. Loveday's writing is smooth and intelligent. She blends everything together very nicely and tells a wonderful descriptive story of different types of people, some you'll love and cheer on and some you'll dislike immensely. This story was not just a romance novel, Kate has imbedded a wonderful cast of true to life characters and many circumstances they went through. It would make a wonderful movie.
Kitty is a very brave strong determined woman who goes through a lot in this story and I was rooting for her all the way through. The title of this story depicts who Kitty is for sure.
Jeanie Jackson reviewed A Woman of Spirit
An Independent Woman is a wonderful and unique historical romance.
Cheated of her birthright and trapped in a time and place where women have few choices, and women of limited means almost none, Kitty Morland finds herself time and again pushed into actions that do not fit her heart or her soul and from which there is no turning back.
Forced to flee her homeland, Kitty and her mother board a ship to Australia to join her brother Robert. On the pleasant journey to the new land, Kitty meets two men who will affect her destiny, Rufe Cavanaugh, an attractive Australian and William Barron, the stodgy son of an English aristocrat who has eyes only for Kitty.
Pressured by circumstance into marriage with a man she does not like, much less love, she moves to beautiful new home, Redwood, in a wonderful but isolated land. When she challenges his sense superiority, he reminds her that by law she is no more than a possession, and unknown to her he is gambling his money away. Without the dominance and disapprove of his mother to hold him in check, her husband's insecurities shift from arrogant reserve to a bullying cruelty, possibly even to insanity.
From Victorian England to the new world of Australia and through the fight to defend her new home and her future, Kitty stands as a woman ready to face all odds with her head held high knowing that the only real choice is to protect the people she loves.
I do not usually read historical romances, but after reading Kate Loveday's contemporary Australian romance, Inheritance, I wanted to know if her other works was as good. I think there is there is a richness to her writing. She may be Australia's answer to Barbara Taylor Bradford.
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Reviews for "An Independent woman - Redwoods Book One"
I came to write the Redwoods series of books after researching life conditions for women in Australia in the nineteenth century. What I learned shocked me. A woman was considered to be physically, emotionally and intellectually inferior to men. She was a second rate citizen. The law in the era stated that when a woman married, all her assets became her husband’s property, and gave him the right to force her to obey him. She became virtually his chattel, to treat as he wished. No matter how badly he chose to treat her, she had no redress.
And not just in Australia, but everywhere.
And that’s where the idea for the series was born. It’s about the young women in a family who rebel against the standards of the day, and the problems they meet when they decide to live their lives outside the normal rules for women of the day.
Life, and love, was not easy for them.
A Woman of Spirit is the first book in the series.
Book I of Southern Swallow Series – 12th Century scholar Li K'ai-men takes command of his first official assignments during a time of political unrest and barbarian invasions.
Encountering danger, romance, heartache and tragedy, Catherine Merit strives to fit into a world filled with prejudice, hatred and violence where she is forced to kill a man in order to save herself. Third book of the Indignities Series.
Encountering danger, romance, heartache and tragedy, Catherine Merit strives to fit into a world filled with prejudice, hatred and violence where she is forced to kill a man in order to save herself. Third book of the Indignities Series.
