Thia Beresford is a fiercely independent young woman who is still unmarried at twenty-seven
to the despair of her conventional older brother. Yet her father and younger brother admire
her courage and spirit; and soon the trio, plus Thia’s maid and brother Algernon’s best friend,
are bound for the wilds of Patagonia. They fall in with a mysterious Welshman called Euan Davies,
who appears to have a secret. What this is will affect them all as they journey into a wild and
inhospitable land.
If you are an armchair traveler like me, you will happily curl up with this tale of travel and
adventure. I could imagine this book being made into a western, as it is replete with the sorts
of events that those wonderful old films always feature. The strong silent cowboy, jail breaks,
bad hombres on the trail who will stop at nothing, and lots of descriptions of the beauty of a
savage, untamed landscape. The only problem—and you won’t often hear me complaining of
this—is that there isn’t quite enough of it.
This book has the odd feeling of having been cut down from a much bigger, almost epic, story.
Several chapters at the beginning are taken up with introducing characters such as the villainous
Edmund Arkwright, and giving a good flavor of life on the Huntingley Estate. This part of the
plot goes nowhere unless there is to be a sequel, but it made me wish for more; not something
that happens very often. Worth a read for a taste of vintage "western" spirit.