Book review: The Woman in the Green Dress by Tea Cooper

I read this as part of the Beauty and Lace Book Club.

A dual timeline novel set in NSW during 1853 and 1919, Tea Cooper has managed once again to write a tale that draws you in and takes you back to a different time in Australia.

The detail in her writing had me walking the streets of Sydney with Della, Stefan and Fleur and living out in Mogo Creek in the beautiful Hawkesbury District communicating with the native people and animals. I hope I get the opportunity to visit the Hawkesbury District one day as it does sound like a lovely place, though I’m sure much has changed since those days.

I did find the book started a bit slower than I expected, but then I reached a point where I was hooked and couldn’t wait to see where this dual timeline took us and how the two timelines joined together. Fleur took quite a long while to grow on me and I much preferred Della from the 1853 timeline as a main heroine. She was a strong woman just as you would have to have been in those days. I thoroughly enjoyed unravelling the mystery that Della and then Hugh left behind for Fleur to uncover, and then see what Fleur did with those discoveries.

One of my favourite characters was young Bert, who was a street urchin with more smarts than many educated people. He bought a lot of humour to the story during his adventures with Stefan and Della.

Thanks to Beauty and Lace and Harlequin Australia  for providing me a copy of this book.

About the author

Tea Cooper writes Australian contemporary and historical fiction. She is a former teacher, a journalist and a farmer. In August 2011 Tea joined Romance Writers of Australia and her debut novel Tree Change was published in 2012. In 2015 her book The Horse Thief won the Australian Romance Readers Award for Favourite Cover.

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