And then she smiled, a small, private smile, and raised her hand as if to place it into the hand of another.
About the Author
Deborah Challinor is a freelance writer and historian living in New South Wales. She is the author of many bestsellers including Isle of Tears and the trilogy Kitty, Amber and Band of Gold, and several non-fiction titles including Who’ll Stop the Rain? and Grey Ghosts.
OTHER BOOKS BY DEBORAH CHALLINOR
Children of War trilogy
Tamar
White Feathers
Blue Smoke
Trilogy
Kitty
Amber
Band of Gold
Isle of Tears
Grey Ghosts
Fire
Union Belle
Who’ll Stop the Rain?
CHILDREN OF WAR TRILOGY
TAMAR
When Tamar Deane is orphaned at seventeen in a small Cornish village, she seizes the chance for a new life and emigrates to New Zealand. In March 1879, alone and frightened on the Plymouth quay, she is befriended by an extraordinary woman. Myrna McTaggart is travelling to Auckland with plans to establish the finest brothel in the southern hemisphere and her unconventional friendship proves invaluable when Tamar makes disastrous choices in the new colony. Tragedy and scandal befall her, but unexpected good fortune brings vast changes to Tamar’s life. As the century draws to a close, uncertainty looms when a distant war lures her loved ones to South Africa. This dramatic story — the first in a sweeping three-volume family saga — has a vivacious and compelling heroine who will live with the reader long after the final page has been turned.
WHITE FEATHERS
In 1914, Tamar Murdoch’s brothelkeeping days are behind her. Her life is one of ease and contentment at Kenmore, a prosperous estate in the Hawke’s Bay, as storm clouds over Europe begin casting long shadows.
In this gripping second instalment of Deborah Challinor’s sweeping family saga, Tamar’s love for her children is sorely tested as one by one they are called, or driven, into the living hell of World War One.
During the Boer War, Joseph, her illegitimate eldest son, fought as a European, but this time he is determined to enlist in the Maori Battalion, despite his growing attraction for his childhood friend, Erin. As loyalties within the Murdoch clan are divided, and the war takes Tamar and Andrew’s only daughter far from her sheltered upbringing, the people and experiences their children encounter will shape the destiny of the Murdoch clan for generations to come.
BLUE SMOKE
On 3 February 1931, Napier is devastated by a powerful earthquake — and Tamar Murdoch, beloved matriarch of Kenmore, is seriously injured. As she recovers, Tamar is preoccupied with the ongoing effects of the Great Depression. When her grandson threatens to leave for Spain to join the International Brigade, she feels a familiar dread — once again her family is threatened by war and heartbreak, as Hitler’s armies march.
In this final volume of the Children of War trilogy, the story of the feisty Cornish seamstress who became a brothelkeeper and land owner is brought to a stirring and memorable conclusion.
Copyright
Thanks to the team at HarperCollins for their faith, advice and guidance, and to Anna Rogers for another excellent editing job. Thanks also to my husband, Aaron, for his financial and emotional support, and for cooking really good dinners.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events; real people, living or dead; or to real locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Other names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in 2004
This edition published in 2012
by HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
PO Box 1, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140
Copyright © Deborah Challinor 2012
Deborah Challinor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Challinor, Deborah.
Blue smoke / Deborah Challinor.
Originally published: 2004.
ISBN 978-1-86950-777-0
I. Title.
NZ823.3—dc 22
ISBN: 978 1 86950 777 0 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978 1 74309 730 4 (epub)
Cover design by Priscilla Nielsen
Cover images by shutterstock.com
Blue Smoke Page 39