Author(s): Lorraine Orman

NZ fiction

Cross Tides is the story of Bels stay with her relations while her parents sort out their dissolving marriage: a stay in which she uncovers a strong connection to the history of a coastal area in the Marlborough Sounds. The connection appears through a highly believable and engaging visitation from the ghost of Lizzie Dawson, whose presence allows Bel to witness scenes from the past. (Lizzis father lost her in a card game to the captain of a whaling ship, a ship that left Sydney for New Zealand with the young sixteen-year-old on board.)New Zealands early colonial beginnings whaling stations, land tussles, preachers and shotgun weddings leap into vivid life. Running in parallel is a rich contemporary portrait using the strands of land rights and family issues.Theres an exciting eeriness in the connection between past and present and high drama in both plots. Bel is a delightful mixture of spiky and vulnerable, and her identification with Lizzie is strongly imagined. Lizzies plight being dragged from her family, forced to marry, a subsequent love affair with a Maori preacher and the suspicious death of the preacher ties in significantly with the contemporary story. An impressive and powerful first novel.