Discovery. Desire. Deception. A wondrously imagined tale of two female botanists, separated by more than a century, in a race to discover a life-saving flower, from the author of the bestselling The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant The Botanist’s Daughter is a time-slip narrative, or dual perspective if you prefer, where one character in the present day discovers a link to a person from the past and we become privy to two stories moving along within different eras. I absolutely loved this novel, both eras, both women, both journeys. It just hit the right note for me from the very beginning. The magic of finding a box with treasures from the past drew me in and held me captive. And the seeds! What a find, and how incredible that under Anna’s guiding green thumb, she got them to sprout after lying dormant for so long. It was this botanical aspect of the story that interested me the most. The quest for cuttings and seeds and the power of plants that stretches across the ages. More so though, the knowledge about the power of plants, because it’s one thing to have a plant that has useful properties, but it’s entirely another to understand its uses. Kayte tapped into this with intricate detail throughout this novel, highlighting how botanical art was also a source of information about the plants depicted, their origins and uses, the dangers and benefits. There was a lot more to this stream of art than pictures of pretty flowers. The Botanist’s Daughter signals quite the turning point for the author of this fascinating historical fiction, crossed with dual narrative tale. It is Kayte Nunn’s first venture into the world of historical fiction. It gives me great pleasure to see Kayte Nunn, an author I have been a fan of since her debut novel, take flight and soar with a new genre. The Botanist’s Daughter is a victory piece for Nunn and it has secured a spot in my most treasured reads of 2018. About the story: the mistery fell short, didn't like the instalove and what about that ending? Why introduce a new character in the last 4 lines of the book? The art of sketching, flowers and turning them into watercolour to make certain flowers come to life play an important role in the book.

Dear Kayte Nunn, what it's "matté"? Because the correct spelling is mate. No double t's and no tilde. And plus chilean people don't drink as much mate as we argentinians do (and I asked a chilean friend about this and she confirmed it). Another thing that was a huge mistake, was "a cup of matté". It's just mate, not a "cup of matté", that doesn't exist. And sweet empanadas? Again, I asked my friend about this and she said they do not eat sweet empanadas, they eat empanadas just filled with meat. Really, Kayte, you should've done a better research before writing this book about a different culture. I have just finished the major edits for my next book, The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant. A marine scientist is sent to a remote British island where she discovers a cache of unsent love letters, written in the 1950s, in an old suitcase. Sets out to discover who they belong to and why they were never sent. In Victorian England after her father's death, headstrong adventuress Elizabeth travels to Chile to find a rare and miraculous plant on his behalf. To do this she will face a sea voyage and unforeseen danger. It’s hard to say what books have influenced me, as I don’t want to try and write exactly like another writer, but in terms of resonance, books from my childhood such as Elizabeth Gouge’s Green Dolphin Country, Rumer Godden’s The Greengage Summer and Riders by Jilly Cooper are probably still up there.

Anna was once again reminded of how extraordinarily long some plants had been around for, blooming, dying and blooming again across the centuries, seeds scattered on the wind, seedlings divided and shared, sold and replanted in foreign soil.” There were a lot of red herrings in the book and different ways the story could have unraveled. Did you always have the ending planned or did it surprise you as well? A little over three years ago, I took my young daughter for a picnic in the Sydney Botanic Gardens. It was a hot sultry day and we were looking for fairies when we came upon the rose garden, and then next to that the herb garden. In the centre of the herb garden is a beautiful bronze sundial, with a raised relief of herbs around it. I put my hand on the warm metal and it was like a bolt of lightning – I had a vision of a young woman in a walled garden in England, with a similar sundial at its centre. I knew straightaway that I had the beginnings of a story and wandered around the rest of the day in a daze, figuring out what it might be. I was working as a freelance journalist, and so was able to cut down on my freelance editing and writing as the fiction took up more of my time. This was a lovely read, a dual timeline historical novel with lots of botanical detail and a little light romance. Like many other readers, I was also taken with Christa Moffitt's beautifully illustrated cover - I'm really taken with her work - here are a few of her other designs:

In present-day Australia, Anna finds a mysterious metal box containing a beautiful sketchbook, a photograph from 1886 and a bag of seeds. This will lead her on a journey far from careful safe life and make her face her own demons.In this beautifully realised novel, two women of the same profession, the field of botany, are in a race to find the key to a powerful flower. These two women are separated by time. In Victorian England, Elizabeth is quite the trailblazer. She leads the charge, continuing in her late father’s endless search to source a precious plant that has the power to heal beyond words. It is a hazardous quest, which involves a lengthy voyage from Cornwall, to Chile. Elizabeth will stop at nothing to fulfil her father’s legacy, but it is a journey marked by much danger. Another pioneering botanist who appears over a century after Elizabeth is Anna, based in Sydney in the present day. When her grandmother passes away, Anna discovers a mysterious metal box among her belongings. Inside she finds a cache of items. These include a book of watercolour sketches, a photograph and a bag of seeds. For Anna this sets forth a pathway to self discovery and an unearthing of a century old tale. For those reviewers who observed that The Botanist’s Daughter was overly long relative to content and contrived, boring fir long stretches: I was sorry to have found it so and to agree! I realized, at the abrupt ending, that, of course, Kayte Nunn, as with so many authors these days — some successfully and happily for the readers; others not — laid in the obvious, if heavy-handed, groundwork for a subsequent book. A series?? Well, so be it. I really enjoyed this novel and it was generally an overall hit at this month’s Book Club. There were some people who really loved this book, myself included, and some who it just wasn’t for but that’s okay! I think a lot of this comes down to what you go into it expecting. In Victorian England, headstrong adventuress Elizabeth takes up her late father’s quest for a rare, miraculous plant. She faces a perilous sea voyage, unforeseen dangers and treachery that threatens her entire family. It is always interesting to see where an idea for a book first germinates. In The Botanist’s Daughter’s case, the author has a personal interest in botany and it truly does reflect through the passionate storytelling of Kayte Nunn. An afternoon spent in a favourite locale, Sydney’s botanical gardens and the connection the author made to a sundial, spurned on this story idea. A visit followed to Kew Gardens and The Botanist’s Daughter was born. It is a magnificent tale at that!