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  • Published: 1 October 2012
  • ISBN: 9781775530206
  • Imprint: RHNZ Adult ebooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336
Categories:

A Secret Mind



A lively, moving novel that vividly recreates the 1880s: the harsh lives; the attitudes to madness and to drunkenness; and the strength of friendship and love.

A lively, moving novel that vividly recreates the 1880s: the harsh lives; the attitudes to madness and to drunkenness; and the strength of friendship and love.

After an accident at four years old, Libby Budd has difficulty speaking. Her devoted father refuses to see there's a problem - even when she starts having fits, seeing dead people and, as she grows older, behaving erratically and violently. In the 1880s, all the doctors can recommend is that she be sent to an asylum, but it's only when Libby's father dies that her desperate mother, Sylvia, considers this seriously. Their community of Stafford is disintegrating as sources of work disappear; Sylvia's close friends the Bramwells have moved to Hokitika; and people there are preoccupied with their own concerns, new scandals, new ventures and new settlers. The only person Sylvia can turn to is Arnold Price, the lodger, and he has his own reasons for wanting Libby out of the way.

  • Published: 1 October 2012
  • ISBN: 9781775530206
  • Imprint: RHNZ Adult ebooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 336
Categories:

About the author

Kaye Kelly

Kaye Kelly was born on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, where she sets her historical novels. She currently lives in the much drier climate of Blenheim. She’s had short stories published in the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly and the Australian New Idea, and also articles published locally. Cross the River to Home was praised by the Otago Daily Times for her skill in bringing ‘not only the time and the place but the social setting of the story to life’. She has published two other novels, Mecca’s Gold and A Secret Mind. Both Cross the River to Home and A Secret Mind have also been published in Germany. See more at www.kayekelly.co.nz.

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