The Pearler’s Wife

AUTHOR: Roxane Dhand

PUBLISHER: Random House

RRP: $32.99

REVIEWER: Mary Ann Elliott

THE Pearler’s Wife is Roxane Dhand’s debut novel.

From the moment she arrived in Broome in 2013, it caught her romantic imagination.

This remote, rugged outpost with its past woven with colourful characters and adventurous tales of divers battling to wrest pearl shells from the depths of the ocean, aroused her interest.

Broome earns its reputation as the “Asian Wild West” in the northwest back of beyond.

With pearling dependent on a non-white workforce, there was unrest because of the then White Australia policy, passed in 1901. Pearling magnates brought in British divers, but found they were no match for Japanese and Asian divers.

Dhand’s novel is set against this background.

Nineteen-year-old Maisie Porter sails from her beloved England to face an uncertain future in Buccaneer Bay and marriage to a distant cousin, Maitland Sinclair, a man she has never met.

He proves to be a callous husband and a cruel and ruthless boss to his mostly Asian employees.

Maisie is soon drawn to a British diver, William Cooper.

The tension between the three main characters adds up to a story that is full of action, drama and romance.

Based on keen research, Dhand combines social and political issues together with a domestic plot that is sure to hold the reader’s interest.