I have to admit that I do enjoy books that take place in Australia. There is something exotic and exiting about the locale, don’t you agree? I thank TLC Book Tours for sending me a copy of The Woman in the Green Dress by Tea Cooper at no charge for my honest review.
About The Woman in the Green Dress:
Paperback: 352 Pages
Publisher: Thomas Nelson (June 16, 2020)
A cursed opal, a gnarled family tree, and a sinister woman in a green dress emerge in the aftermath of World War I.
After a whirlwind romance, London teashop waitress Fleur Richards can’t wait for her new husband, Hugh, to return from the Great War. But when word of his death arrives on Armistice Day, Fleur learns he has left her a sizable family fortune. Refusing to accept the inheritance, she heads to his beloved home country of Australia in search of the relatives who deserve it more.
In spite of her reluctance, she soon finds herself the sole owner of a remote farm and a dilapidated curio shop full of long-forgotten artifacts, remarkable preserved creatures, and a mystery that began more than sixty-five years ago. With the help of Kip, a repatriated soldier dealing with the sobering aftereffects of war, Fleur finds herself unable to resist pulling on the threads of the past. What she finds is a shocking story surrounding an opal and a woman in a green dress. . . a story that, nevertheless, offers hope and healing for the future.
This romantic mystery from award-winning Australian novelist Tea Cooper will keep readers guessing until the astonishing conclusion.
About the Author:
Tea Cooper is an Australian author of historical and contemporary fiction. In a past life she was a teacher, a journalist and a farmer. These days she haunts museums and indulges her passion for storytelling.
Connect with Tea
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
My Opinion:
The Woman in the Green Dress takes place in two different times (as many books lately do.) It begins in London at the end of WWI with a young woman named Fleur finding out her brand new husband did not survive the war. They were going to live in his home country of Australia when he came home but now he has left her his estate. She is refusing to believe that he is dead but in her numb state she follows the directions of his solicitor and gets on the ship to Australia to get the details and wait for him – because he can’t be dead. She’d know it.
The second timeline takes place in the 1850s and shares the story of a man named Captain von Richter who is searching for what might be the first opal found on the continent. His story moves along as he searches for the gemstone and meets various people in Sydney and the countryside as he tries to discover who has it.
I really enjoyed this tale as the two stories come together to explain what happened to the opal and how the past connects to the future. It would have gotten 5 stars but for the every other chapter method of going back forth between timelines. That was a bit jarring for me. It’s too little information doled out at a time per timeline and it was just too disjointed for me. Others may feel differently – my old brain didn’t like shifting back and forth so quickly. The plot is solid, the characters engaging and other than that issue I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
Rating:
4.5
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