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

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Both a breathtaking adventure story and a moving testimony to the lengths we go to for the people we love, it swept me away from the first page .

Compelling, fiercely feminist, and atmospheric, Lizzie Pook’s Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter is a truly mesmerising novel. This is an outstanding debut novel that will capture the hearts of many readers, especially those who love historical fiction.The setting of the story is a harsh landscape with strange and often deadly flora, fauna and sea creatures. She cannot even pester Thomas about it as he immediately heads off to another town saying he has business to attend to. It's dangerous and deadly work, less so for her father and brother, but very dangerous and deadly for those that work under them.

Set on the northern coast of Western Australia, Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter takes place during 1886.

I just wish a few more of those nostalgic childhood moments were included in the story to really understand their relationship but it was nonetheless touching. Eliza knows he had nothing to do with it, he wasn’t even on the boat when Mr Brightwell disappeared. years later in 1896, a lonely Eliza is awaiting the arrival of her father's pearling lugger, the Starling, which has been at sea for over 3 months. 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 .

The pace was cracking and Eliza was very much her own woman - strong and fearless and loyal to a fault. I don’t read a lot of historical fiction but this one appealed because it is set in a time and place that I don’t know a lot about. But in a town teeming with corruption, prejudice, and blackmail, Eliza soon learns that the answers she seeks might cost more than pearls. In 1886 Eliza Brightwell’s family - herself, her parents, her older brother Thomas, Uncle Willem and Aunt Martha set off from England to Bannin Bay in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia to start a pearling business. However, the Starling doesn't come in until late in the day, and her father is not on board, he has gone missing and the assumption is that he went overboard, although rumours abound of murder and mutiny.

Pook introduced various interesting characters, such as Min, a mixed-race girl of an Asian father who was forced into prostitution to survive. Many thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the much appreciated arc which I reviewed voluntarily and honestly. Where the author excels with her vivid descriptions of the dry Kimberly landscape, the community’s streets and residents, and the changing conditions of the sea, effortlessly evoking harsh heat, salt air and crashing waves. The book also shines an important light on the indigenous people and how they were exploited, enslaved, and abused by this industry (truly horrific).