As she did in the first book of this trilogy - The Secret River - Kate Grenville delves into her family history to recreate the past in Sarah Thornhill. Sarah is the youngest child of William Thornhill, the central character in The Secret River, who was shipped to Australia as a convict and eventually made a decent life for his family.
Sarah grows up in ignorant bliss of the troubles that took place between her father and the local Aboriginals, her eyes firmly set on the handsome Jack Langland. More...

Every novel I read by Kate Grenville confirms her as a wonderful writer. Sarah Thornhill's story begins as a child, the youngest child of William Thornhill. William came to Australia as a convict, but worked hard and became a landowner, with a nice house on the Hawkesbury River. Sarah isn't a demure girl, but one who rides horses, loves spending time outdoors, and asks questions when she wants to know things. She is close to her oldest brother Will, and his friend Jack Langland. Jack is someone More...

Sarah Thornhill grows up in the primitive Australia of the early 19th century and knows the family history of how her father was transported from England, but is now doing well and considered respectable. But there are family secrets which she cannot understand and which threaten the love she has for Jack Langland, a friend of her brother's. The past is not always content to stay where it is and sometimes changes how the future turns out.

This is the third in Kate Grenville's trilogy, which start More...

Sarah Thornhill is a satisfying ending to Kate Grenville's trilogy about the colonization of Australia by British prisoners. The story began in The Secret River (short-listed for the Booker Prize) with William Thornhill's deportation to New South Wales and continued in The Lieutenant with Daniel Rooke's quest to understand the foreign land he is ordered to colonize and civilize. Sarah Thornhill returns to the Thornhill family, now a prosperous family with little connection to their crude beginni More...

The youngest child of a man who was once a convict but is now a landowner, the title character grows up in a life of relative privilege. “Blacks” are at the edges of her world but their way of life is largely unknown to her, and she makes no connection between that world and the man she falls in love with, Jack Langland, the son of her father’s friend. But Jack’s mother was indigenous, and eventually Sarah realises that he will never be truly accepted in her world.

The novel is a coming-of-age s More...

Sarah Thornhill is the story of the youngest child of the family at the heart of Grenville’s novel The Secret River. A stand-alone novel told in Sarah’s words featuring her father, an ex-con, made good in the new world, her unloving and snobbish stepmother who is the only mother Sarah knows after her real mother died. She falls in love with the handsome Jack Langland, whom she has grown up with, and thinks that this is forever.
However the secret lurking in the background for the Thornhill famil More...

I loved this sequel to The secret river. It tells the story of the youngest Thornhill, Sarah, who falls in love with Jack Langlands, a half white and half aboriginal sealer. They have an understanding that they are meant for each other. This is overturned when Sarah's brother Will is drowned in New Zealand, leaving a young daughter. Sarah's father presuades Jack to bring the girl back to live with his family. When she arrives, however, she cannot settle into the house and Sarah's promise to look More...

The language and grammar took some getting used to, but I commend the author for tackling (and succeeding with) colonial Australian jargon. It felt as if an older Sarah was telling me her story (which fits right in with the novel's purpose). I could practically see Sarah sitting in an old rocking chair on the verandah with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, often times looking off into the bush as she shared her story. It was Grenville's language that made me miss Australia and New Zealand wi More...

I have been a huge fan of Kate Grenville’s ‘The Secret River’ for years, and I was really looking forward to reading more about the Thornhill family. However, I have to confess that that I was very disappointed with ‘Sarah Thornhill.’

In my opinion, the better story would have been that of the adopted Maori granddaughter who was brought to the Thornhill household. Yet, Rachel is never anything more than a token character in the book and I got the sense that Grenville took the easy way out by focu More...

If possible, I would prefer giving this novel 3 1/2 stars. This is because I'm rather in two minds about it. Having read the excellent prequel by Grenville, The Secret River, I was not exactly expecting a story like this one; a story which is for the greater part focused on a romance between the titular character and Jack Langland, half-white and half aborigine Australian. For a while I found myself wondering in what manner Grenville meant this story of childhood and teenage romance, then secret More...

This final novel in the trilogy by Kate Grenville follows Sarah Thornhill, the youngest member of the Thornhill family. Sarah, or Dolly as she is known to her family, is the daughter of an ex-convivt who has made a life for himself in the new territory in Australia. Sarah falls in love with a local boy who has a white father and native black mother, but a family secret kept quiet by the Thornhills for years will tear apart their relationship, and affect the course of Sarahs life forever, leaving More...

This book is the sequel to ‘The Secret River’. Sarah Thornhill is the daughter of William Thornhill, once a convict but now an ‘old colonist’, as those who have become free and have prospered in Australia are now called. Sarah grows up in the fine house William has built with his new wealth and lives a happy childhood. She and her siblings have always been friends with Jack Langland, the half-aboriginal son of a neighbor. Jack has been is treated no differently by the William and his snobbish se More...

Sarah Thornhill is a fabulous novel by Kate Grenville, who always manages to capture an authentic and real colonial Australian landscape. Early in my reading Sarah's voice was not always easy to decipher, but as I continued and got to know this character better, she unfolded beautifully. Sarah is not always endearing, but the (female?) reader develops a genuine empathy with her as she finds her way in a hard world.

The story paints a vivid picture of what life may have been like for early settle More...

3rd book in Grenville's colonial Australia set--the critics adored the first, SECRET RIVER, my favorite still stands, THE LIEUTENANT, but I also liked SARAH THORNHILL. Grenville gave it a somewhat (and unusual for her) tidy ending.

A sequel to The Secret River, Kate Grenville's Sarah Thornhill continues the Thornhill family's saga through a second
generation, when the murderous rampage Sarah Thornhill's father secretly participated in against the Australian Aborigines comes to haunt the young woman's life in several unexpected ways. Kate Grenville is a remarkable author with a very distinctive voice for her Australian characters. Her characters are complex and rich, and the stories she tells about their lives are utterly co More...

This book had a slow start and awkwardness of a narrator without an education but as I read, I was drawn in to the story of a family in New South Wales--especially their headstrong daughter, Sarah in the 19th century. Sarah is an honest person who wants to discover the secret about her brother who is separated from the family. She falls in love with Jack and expects to marry him. Then reality intrudes in the form of her stepmother who is true to the character of a stepmother--a very nasty person More...

A sequel to The Secret River. Sarah Thornhill is the youngest child of William Thornhill who was `sent out` to New South Wales as a covict and subsequnently made good. There is a dark secret which seriously troubles him, which we already know but Sarah does not. This is revealed to the young half Aboriginal boy, who Sarah is in love with and he is so upset he leaves, and goes to New Zealand. Sarah eventually marries a good man.
The descriptions of the country are superb. the handling of the prob More...

In ‘Sarah Thornhill’, Kate Grenville weaves a tale of innocence and love that invites you gently into the story. Readers can take pleasure in childhood wonder as Sarah falls in love with Australia’s natural beauty, and as she grows up we can share in the delight of love, as the young and innocent experience it, with its sweetness, its newness, its promise of future happiness.

Then life unfolds and the reader descends in to its shadows.

Some non-indigenous Australians resist the idea that indigenou More...

I think Kate Grenville is a brilliant and brave writer. I enjoyed this book very much, but the feelings of ancestral shame that it evokes are unavoidable to anyone whose family has a long history in this country. People whose families migrated more recently may not share these feelings, but it is horrible to think what may have been done in the not so distant past to claim the land I grew up on.
The relentless destruction of animal species to 'make a living" is no less painful for not being dwelt More...

This sequel to "The Secret River" - which I loved - was very hard to put down. This isn't a candidate to become a classic like "The Secret River", but it is a well-written tragic romance, touching on some larger themes. I'm rarely a fan of dialect, but Sarah's voice holds true to the end, and the style and pacing of the book worked well with the story. The ending felt just a bit rushed, or contrived, or both, but I liked it anyway. Would be interesting to know how someone feels about some of the More...

I loved the beautiful and rather unusual style of this book. The simple prose and clever use of language wove wonderful pictures of Australia and the river by which the story is set.
The story highlights tensions between Aboriginal people and white incomers and contrasts this with the relationship with the Maori indigenous population of New Zealand and it's immigrants.
I so wish I had read the previous books in this series. I will leave it a while until the freshness of this wonderful story fades More...

Quite a disappointment compared to the 2 previous books in this loose trilogy "The Secret River" and "The Lieutenant", both of which I found masterly, restrained and moving. It reads more like a moderately well-written colonial romance. It lacks the presence and stories of the indigenous people who made the earlier works come to life. See also the comparison with "That Deadman Dance" which may have spoiled alternative versions of such stories for me. Have I also bought into the criticism that wh More...

From the second paragraph, Sarah Thornhill establishes herself as a woman with a strong sense of self. Raised in colonial Van Diemen's Land as the daughter of a transportee who made good, she can neither read nor write. Yet the telling of how she confronts betrayal, abandonment, and yet perseveres is well worth reading. I particularly appreciated that Kate Grenville did not shrink from the legacy of the 'convict stain' and the treatment of aboriginal peoples. This is the final book of a trilogy. More...

I had not read the other two in the trilogy, and yet found myself still so taken with Sarah and the quiet determination she shows throughout the story. This is her story, and stands well on its own. She is a wonderful character, and the story so wonderfully spare and melancholy. I was both motivated to read more about the time in Australian history as portrayed here, as well as to pick up the other titles. Compared with the richness and complexity often seen in historical fiction, this might see More...

Has Kate Grenville been taking secret lessons from Romance Writers of Australia? Plenty of reviews of her latest book touch on other themes, but none focus on her prowess as a romance writer.
Sarah Thornhill comprises less than 70,000 words, all carefully chosen and packing a lot of punch. Its structure means that it doesn’t qualify as a ‘category romance’ and it’s slightly too short to satisfy the usual requirement of 80,000 to 100,000 words for a ‘Single Title’ romance. But Sarah Thornhill defi More...

As she did in the first book of this trilogy - The Secret River - Kate Grenville delves into her family history to recreate the past in Sarah Thornhill. Sarah is the youngest child of William Thornhill, the central character in The Secret River, who was shipped to Australia as a convict and eventually made a decent life for his family.
Sarah grows up in ignorant bliss of the troubles that took place between her father and the local Aboriginals, her eyes firmly set on the handsome Jack Langland. More...

Sarah Thornhill is the sequel to the award-winning The Secret River by Australian author, Kate Grenville. The story is narrated by Sarah, the youngest daughter of emancipist William Thornhill and starts some years after the events of The Secret River. Sarah is growing up in a fine house on the Hawkesbury River, in a family keeping secrets. Her step-mother, Meg, is a proud and hard woman who will never forget her husband has a taint, has worn the broad arrow. Her father is haunted by the guilt of More...

Several years ago I had the opportunity to read The Secret River by Kate Grenville, a book which really opened my eyes about the history of convicts who were shipped to Australia and the early history of New South Wales. It’s a wondeful book, heartbreaking and moving, and although it’s a work of fiction, a lot of research seems to have gone into developing the historical basis of the book and it feels very realistic.

When I saw that Grenville had written a follow-up novel, Sarah Thornhill, I coul More...

The white colonists have pushed the original Aborigines to the fringes of society, poor and begging for food and clothing. We first meet Sarah Thornhill as a young girl, her father an ex-convict turned colonist and landowner and the amazing thing about this novel is that the words and what she feels is that of a young girl. As a teenager, the dialog and observations mature somewhat, and she falls in love with her brothers friend and seal hunting partner, but a boy who her stepmother does not con More...