The Denniston Rose

De: Jenny Pattrick

Narrado por: Kate Hood

The bleak coal-mining settlement of Denniston, isolated high on a plateau above New Zealand's West Coast, is a place that makes or breaks those who live there. All sorts arrive here to work the mines and bring down the coal: ex-goldminers down on their luck, others running from the law or from a woman or worse. They work alongside recruited English miners, solid and skilled, who scorn these disorganised misfits and want them off the hill.

Into this chaotic community come five-year-old Rose and her mother, riding up the incline, at night, during a storm. No one knows what has driven them there, but most agree the mother must be desperate to choose Denniston; worse, to choose that drunkard, Jimmy Cork, as a bedfellow. The indomitable Rose is left to fend for herself, finding allies and enemies in her struggle to secure a place in this tough and often aggressive community.

©2003 Jenny Pattrick (P)2004 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

A wonderful, complex historical novel

Jenny Pattrick is a fine writer who both captures and teaches the reader in New Zealand history.

Well done

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

A wonderful story narrated with passion strong characters so indicative of west coasters who now are coming to terms with the Pike river mining disaster with the loss of 29.A challenging environment with inhabitants to match. Jenny Pattrich has captured this all so well.

Hardship of early settlement

This well written story illustrates the hardship endured by women and children in particular in an era bereft of life’s comforts for so many. Beautifully narrated by Kate Hood.