What an amazing book. Tells the story of the life a woman could expect in the late 18th century. The answer to which is not much of one. She belonged to her husband - who had no more need to consult her than he would a dog or a horse. Life was to be endured, enjoyment wasn't on the cards to many women. My only complaint was that I wanted to know more of the rest of her life after the book finished.

Loved it

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I read a free advance review copy of the book. This review is voluntary, honest and my own opinion.

This is Kate Grenville doing more of her Kate Grenville thing! Yes, it's interesting being back in the early years of Australia being built up from a penal colony, and seeing it through female eyes - but there's a kind of swimming at the surface feel as everything unrolls with swift mini-chapters and there's no real depth or change of pace. Very quick and easy reading with nothing challenging to get our teeth into.

Another phenomenal book from Kate Grenville. An alternative history to the growth & development of New South Wales. Based loosely on facts and existing documents & letters the tale is told from a woman’s perspective. I enjoyed the writing, the characters and the story.

The latest from #kategrenville. Another #historicalfiction fiction about the first Australian settlers, focussing on Elizabeth MacArthur, one of the original land owners in Sydney. Elizabeth travelled from rural Devon, with her husband in a loveless marriage. A naïve girl grows into a canny woman surviving on her own terms. The descriptions of the penal colony, the Aboriginal locals, the endless antipodean landscapes, the other settlers and her family struggles are fascinating. However I wanted more of her and less of all the men who surrounded her. True they ran the show but what dull, arrogant, unlikeable characters. Reading about the problematic situation with the Aboriginal people and the loss of their lands was written sensitively, and seeing how this small bunch of British people built up the great city of Sydney from this humble and hard beginning is interesting; but it didn't feel that different to her previous novels, and as much as I enjoyed it I wasn't as gripped as I hoped to be. Definitely worth reading if you want to have an insight into the beginnings of Australian settlement though and she writes beautifully.

Thank you Canongate for the early copy.

One woman's story as an early Australian settler. This book has such beautifully vivid descriptions of the rugged scenery of New South Wales in the early days of European settlement that you almost feel you are there. When Elizabeth's mother remarries, she makes it clear that her daughter will have to find a new home. With few options available, she goes to live firstly with the local vicar, then marries John Macarthur. Little did she know that he would transport her from Devon to Australia, to live among the few white settlers and their convict servants. Although she briefly finds love with another man in their 'room full of leaves', her life is hard, although her cleverness enables her to influence her husband to her advantage. She is keenly aware that Europeans had stolen their land from the local Aboriginal people but comes to love her new home. Another great novel from Orange Prize-winning author, Kate Grenville.

In this latest historical novel by Australian author Kate Grenville we are presented with a tale – the tale? – of a real wife and early white immigrant into the country. She – married to a young military ensign - arrived on the second convict ship into what became known as Sydney Harbour convict colony. Grenville uses this novel to explore the life of one woman in extraordinary circumstances – a woman who like most others has been airbrushed out of regular historical accounts. She explores the particular difficulties that the few women would face in this a strange land under military control, with disease, childbirth, regular shortages, no real legal status or protection and little family support. In a new country that was thousands of miles and months away from the “Motherland”.
We know that some of the “new” men managed to rise to prominence, wealth and power over the early decades of British rule. Some came into the country with extra privilege and wealth of course, but others didn’t. Grenville will explore exactly what types of men will rise to the top in those situations and how and why. As this is a novel primarily about a woman Elizabeth Macarthur the extent that this success could have been based on the work of others, often their partners and wives, much of it unacknowledged then as now. But in a new penal colony where men predominated, where control was based on coercion and extreme violence, where the local first people population would be invaded, de-landed and then subjected to genocide extreme behaviour that might not be tolerated in Britain could flourish largely unchecked.
Elizabeth Macarthur, with little family support, already pregnant, is shown entering into marriage with a young man she barely knew back in Devon in the latter part of the 18th century. Her husband, a young military ensign, has built his life on a series of lies about his background and a grandiose façade he can only maintain with difficulty. But behind this we are shown a man not just insecure and unpleasant, but unstable and at times psychotic as well. We are given full view of a violent and controlling marriage that would be clearly recognisable to many women today. But the underlying aspect of living with a truly disturbed and out of control man is truly chilling as well. Elizabeth will not just live with and through this but she is presented as the reason why the Macarthur family survived and flourished.
Readers of a certain age will remember geography lessons and being told that one of the great reasons for the success of Australia was the new development of the production of quality wool. A “high value” crop easy to transport long distances by sea back to Britain and generate income to support other development. But Grenville has asked how an ex-military man with no background in agriculture and who spent great swathes of his professional life away from Australia could have generated this expertise and trade. She lays it at the door of his wife left on the family estate – Elizabeth’s farming background is explored. But in Grenville’s hand it becomes an exploration too of loss through emigration of family, traditions and old places. But furthermore how with finding joy in the new environment and people a person might build the courage and happiness to move on.
This is a wonderful and vibrant novel on so many fronts; and in spite of the less than easy realities behind it, a joy to read. It is so people centred, it has a great sense of place and it is not soft history but it shows the very clear cultural and “values” links between people now and then. It pulls no punches about the violence, injustices and daily difficulties and horrors of life for many, but because Grenville melds her themes, peoples and places so seamlessly it creates a totally believable and immersive whole.

Writing a fictionalised memoir of a real person is a difficult venture, with lots of research required, and I think Kate Grenville did a great job. I also knew practically nothing about early Australian history, so it was an intriguing read for me.

This is, first and foremost, a character-driven novel of the protagonist and her life: Elizabeth Macarthur (1776-1850)., wife of John Macarthur, a British army office and pioneer of Australian settlement by the British. Kate Grenville takes some real historical letters written by Elizabeth as the starting point for the novel, which is written in first-person. The book begins with her childhood in Devon, through her marriage and children with John. Elizabeth believes she has made a mistake in marrying John, and he is shown to be an arrogant brute and bully. I found the introspective nature of dealing with a woman that sticks in an unhappy marriage to be an intriguing narrative, worth exploring, as its a reality many women did and do face. I also appreciated Grenville's incorporation of aboriginal culture, and not using the historical setting and characters as an escape from addressing their horrific treatment. Elizabeth, albeit anachronistically, acknowledges the unfair treatment of aboriginal communities and we see her own guilt and acceptance of responsibility.

A relatively easy read - now I want to go and find out more about the historical context!

'What comfort there is in knowing that trees, sunlight, birds go on, indifferent to the life in this house, or in the heart of the woman at its heart.'
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This was an interesting story; a historical fiction epistolary novel, of a woman who is trapped by her situation, but finds subtle ways of escaping her confines.
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'That word, wilful, gave me a picture of myself I did not quite recognise. Knew I had a temper and quick wit ... But now I knew that you called that wilful. And being wilful - I heard it in my mother's tone - was something that made you unattractive, unpleasant, unlikeable.'
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From the outset Elizabeth doesn't have a particularly happy life. The loss of her father, and later the loss of her grandfather as guardian, leave her feeling isolated and lonely. She believes herself to be the owner of her own destiny, yet is still bound by expectations of her gender.
Some elements of the story do present Elizabeth as a victim of circumstance, and yet at the end she comes into her own more. Not necessarily as a feminist character, but more as a moral voice for the reader.
Her reflections on nature and the part humans play, particularly in relation to the natural order of things, is well depicted throughout.
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'I do not turn away. I am prepared to look in the eye what we have done. That repairs no part of the sorrow of it, I know. But it is the first thing, the first hard truth, without which no repair can ever be hoped for.'
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With themes of race, history and feminism, I do think a lot of readers would enjoy this book. I'd recommend it to fans of historical fiction, but wouldn't look to read it again myself, though it was an easy to read story.
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'Every person - even a loved person, and I was not loved - was alone.'

What an extraordinary thing, to be one of the first white people to arrive in Sydney at the tail end of the eighteenth century. Kate Grenville takes the facts about Elizabeth McArthur, who was an early settler, and gives her a voice.

Elizabeth is a lovely character form the start, lively and impulsive and totally unsuited to living int he straightjacket of English society. Following a single mistake, she finds herself chained to a man she neither likes nor loves, and determines to make the best of it.

The book is well-paced and the characters likeable when told in Elizabeth's strong voice, and the representation of what life must have been like for those early arrivals is fascinating.

I very much enjoyed the way the personal is brought to the fore while set beautifully in an historical setting, I was transported to another time and spent my whole time rooting for Elizabeth as she makes her own space and time for herself and her children.

Kate Grenville brings the protagonist to life, exploring the pressures of a woman’s role in the 1700s.

An intriguing look at life in early Australia. After having to marry Mr Mcarthur Elizabeth undertakes the gruelling journey by ship to Sydney. The story is told by Elizabeth and covers the years spent with her husband. I found all the descriptions of early Australia fascinating and loved the strength of Elizabeth s character. Mr Mcarthur reminded me of a mixture of Dickens Mr Micawber and Mr Bumble.. I did feel a lot of time was given to the early years and then the end seemed a bit rushed but it was a very enjoyable book.

Using the device of a supposed cache of recently discovered letters, Kate Grenville imagines the private life of Elizabeth Macarthur, whose husband, John, was a pioneer of the Australian wool industry and who is widely regarded as one of the most significant figures in his country's history. However, in Kate Grenville's story his success is largely due to the resourcefulness of his wife and her skill in managing his difficult personality.

At the novel's heart is the imposing backdrop of the Australian countryside, beautiful but uncompromising. Against this backdrop she reworks many of the themes of her earlier books including the experience of knowing oneself to be regarded by the world as unattractive, the unexpected arrival of love when all hope of it has been abandoned, and the unrecognised and buried atrocities of early Australian history.

There is a such an authenticity about Kate Grenville's writing. It comes from the patient accumulation of small detail that mimics lived experience. Bit by bit she unpicks the story Australia has told itself, replacing it with one that contains room for the voices that have been omitted.

Is it a novel or is it a memoir? That’s the question Kate Grenville leaves hanging in this intriguing story of Elizabeth Macarthur, an English woman who accompanied her army officer husband on the Second Fleet to Australia in 1790. Purportedly a memoir reconstructed from journals and letters, it’s immediately engaging: Elizabeth as written is interested in the world around her, quick-witted and canny enough even as a child to realise it would be better not to let on just how clever she is. While she is admirable and stalwart, Mr Macarthur is a bully, hair-trigger sensitive to anything he perceives as an insult or affront to his honour.
Having had a quick look at Wikipedia when I first started reading, I had some idea of Elizabeth’s life. I was glad the book didn’t try to cover the whole sweep, concentrating instead on the first few years in Australia. Reading this underlined for me just how little I know about the first settler colonies in Australia and the circumstances that led people to go there, either as convicts or military personnel and those accompanying them.
I could have done without the very short chapters with headings signalling their content (I’d rather find out as I read) and I didn’t love the layout of speech being indicated by a separate paragraph with a dash at the beginning rather than by quotation marks. That said, I found it easy to read, and wanted to keep reading to find out if things got any easier for Elizabeth after such a grim start. I was left wanting more.

Kate Grenville continues to write about Australia, this time going back to the earliest settlers and using the story told by Elizabeth Macarthur, wife of one of the first soldiers to be sent out there.
Elizabeth is a girl from Dorset who ends up married to a very junior Army officer who goes to Sydney as his career in the UK is not progressing as he would hope. They arrive in the newly established colony after an eventful voyage, during which Elizabeth gives birth to a son. Life in Sydney is harsh - the settlers rely on supplies brought by sea as they do not know how to farm the unfamiliar terrain, so are often close to starvation. Her husband is an unpleasant and highly ambitious man, who cares little for his wife and offends many of his fellow soldiers. However, Elizabeth makes the best of her situation, learning how to outwit her husband to make her life more bearable.
Well written, with a twist at the end, this is a great book - thoroughly recommended.

My first Kate Grenville read and I loved it.

A fictionalised account of life in Australia, through the memoir of the remarkable Elizabeth MacArthur (1776-1850). Born in Devon, she made one mistake and ended up married to John MacArthur, a ruthless bully who dragged her on a nightmare voyage to farm in New South Wales. She reveals her true feelings married to her arrogant and unscrupulous husband, but her steadfast courage, knowledge of sheep farming and intelligence enable her to deal with him and lead a fulfilling and richly satisfying life with her children.
Thirsty for knowledge, and passionate, her relationship with Mr Dawes and her respect for the indigenous people challenges the expected behaviour of the stereotypical woman of her time.
The title of the book is inspired; the natural descriptions profound, sensual, spiritual, and touch on the spiritual and inner sensibilities of Elizabeth.
Thank you #NetGalley and #CanonGate for my pre-release download.

I was very keen to read this, having really enjoyed the Thornhill series by the same author. Where those books focused a little more on the landscape of Australia, this was focused more on the character of Mrs MacArthur, based on a real woman. I loved the way we learned a lot about her early life in Devon, and her voyage to Australia with her husband. The focus on the female plight of the time, being forced into marriage and childbirth, was reflected later in the treatment of the convicts and Aboriginal people, although these lacked the depth given to the main woman. The story was atmospheric and well told, and her tumultuous relationship was sympathetically described.

A Room Made of Leaves is the first of Kate Grenville's books I've read; she isn't an author I'm familiar with but I wanted to read this novel as I enjoy historical fiction and had never read any about the colonisation of Australia.

Unfortunately I struggled to engage with the style of writing. This is a fictional memoir so I understand the stylistic reasons for the lack of dialogue or dramatisation, and the absurdly short chapters, but crikey it makes for a less compelling read than a straightforward historical fiction novel would have been. Which is a real shame because Elizabeth Macarthur was obviously a fascinating woman about whom too little is known.

I feel there is a wonderful, illuminating story here - it would make a great movie - but, despite the author's intentions to reveal the real (or rather, imagined) Elizabeth Macarthur, she is frustratingly obscured by stilted language and a one-dimensional perspective on her relationships.

However I'm glad I ploughed through the book because the final section is particularly interesting, with due respect paid to the Aboriginal people of Australia. There is also a reassuringly familiar feminist narrative running through A Room Made of Leaves that is sort of comforting rather than radical. My anger at Elizabeth's economic dependency on her awful husband felt almost nostalgic, which is an encouraging sign of how far down this road literature has already travelled.

So although I've learnt a lot from this book and enjoyed the premise of its protagonist, I'm afraid to say that as a novel, for me anyway, it falls a bit flat.

This book is a really well written historical fiction inspired by a real woman. She made a wrong marriage and has to go to Australia with her husband and child. She therefore has a lot of difficulty in adjusting and is quite lonely.

It was very emotional to read about this as a woman, but even if it's fictional, I'm glad Elizabeth MacArthur had a voice.

I would highly recommend if you like historical fiction and memoirs.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

You've got married, and you realise you've got married to the wrong man. You cant change the situation, even more so when your new husband insists you travel with him from England to New South Wales. Elizabeth McArthur is pregnant and alone, and arrives in Australia. The book ultimately tells her story as she settles in New South Wales and has to learn quickly to be alone and look out for herself and her children.
This is a great period of history being told by Elizabeth and is well written and laid out. It makes a pleasant change to get the perspective of a female during this timeframe.
This lovely piece of fiction inspired by the real letters of Elizabeth MacArthur - one I wouldn't have wanted to live through.
It is an important part of history, all be it quite a bleak one.
I love reading memoirs but this didn't really hold my attention as well as I would expect for historical fiction.
Thank you for the opportunity to read it in advance.
Kate Grenville is now an another author who I will go and explore further.

Kate Grenville has a winning formula and she’s jolly well going to stick with it.

That formula is to set a story around the early years of the penal colony that has now grown into Sydney; to focus on particular early settlers; their journey to the colony; their work in claiming a life for themselves; and the impact that had on the Indigenous population. Kate Grenville does this very well; her writing is evocative; she creates both the place and the atmosphere of the time. She poses the same difficult questions about the human instinct for survival even at the cost of others – whether that is the crime that resulted in transportation; the exploitation of the convicts by the naval officers – using them essentially as slave labour; or the dispossession and massacre of Aboriginal people. There is a sense that it might all have turned out differently with more respect; but equally a sense that people did not (and still do not) want to give up their privilege. Plus, there’s the difficult truth that there was a lot achieved in a very short space of time in those early days when human rights, procedural fairness and accountability did not present obstacles. It is unlikely that modern bureaucracies could achieve so much, so quickly.

In a bit of a departure, A Room Made of Leaves names real people: the Macarthurs – wool barons – after whom many Australian things are named. The premise is that Elizabeth Macarthur left a written account of her life which is now being transcribed. In this account, she focuses on her turbulent but middle-class childhood in Devon, her obligation to marry and follow a rather mediocre Naval Ensign after falling pregnant, and her early experiences in New South Wales. She is a diplomat who seeks to achieve by listening, learning and implementing. Her husband John is a hot-headed, impetuous man with a fondness for duelling – a chancer who will wheedle and blackmail his way to success. Elizabeth’s narrative would have us believe that she created a wool empire in spite of her husband; the reality is that it took the mis-matched pair to achieve success. Elizabeth provided the ideas and sourced the knowledge of sheep-husbandry; John obtained the land and made sure the traditional owners were “dealt with”.

We also meet Lieutenant Dawes, thinly disguised as Daniel Rooke in The Lieutenant, who provides some comfort for Elizabeth in the early years of an unhappy marriage. Dawes was interested in Aboriginal languages and culture, as well as learning more about the land and its plant-life. Through Dawes, Elizabeth came to meet some of the Traditional Owners whose land her husband was intent on acquiring. But when Dawes returned to England, Elizabeth lost both her lover and her moral compass. She understood that the Aboriginal people, just like her slave-convicts, were people too. She just chose to push that to the back of her mind as she amassed her fortune.

Like her previous Thornhill series, A Room Made of Leaves is beautifully done, but it is bleak and the message can seem sometimes to take over the story.

As a footnote, A Room Made of Leaves would have been written before the Black Lives Matter movement started to shine a spotlight onto specific historical figures. As a society, we are starting to question the iconic status that many colonialists have enjoyed; to question the legacy of place names and statues. The use of real names in this fiction may cause too much attention to be focused on the names rather than on the real legacy which is one of enduring privilege that was earned only through exploitation and genocide.