THE HOUSE AT OCEAN’S EDGE
J H Parker
West Harbour Publishing
REVIEWED BY GILLIAN VINE
The house of the title is real, an Otago Peninsula property where the author of this historical novel once lived.
The story centres on the unlikely friendship between two girls of different backgrounds, who meet in 1875 on a ship bound for Dunedin.
The dream comes true - Lizzie marries her friend’s brother, who farms the family property, while Sarah chooses a titled North Otago man.
It ends badly, when, on her friend’s evidence, Lizzie is imprisoned for the murder of her husband’s spendthrift older brother.
Years pass and Lizzie’s son sets out to discover what drove his mother to such a crime.
There is an occasional historical inaccuracy: for example, Lizzie admires a Robert Louis Stevenson book several years before the Scot’s first novel was published.
And while the brother-in-law’s debauchery resulting in an injured prostitute is an opportunity to examine the mores of the day, it is a bit of a distraction.
Because of diversions like this, Parker devotes too much of her book to the years leading to the killing and then rather skimps on the ending, which feels rushed.
Overall, though, The House at Ocean’s Edge is an interesting view of Victorian Dunedin.
Gillian Vine is a Dunedin writer
