This small book surprised me with its excellence. The short stories contained in it are all well written and fascinating to read. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Scottish folk-tales!

Being a Jane Austen Fan, I thought this novel might be interesting. You see after Jane Austen's death her sister, Cassandra burned most of her letters leaving a large proportion of her life unaccounted for. Coupled with that one of Jane's aunts, a rather snobbish and upper class women, seems to have been successfully prosecuted for shoplifting and transported to Australia. As there are no letters of Jane's dating from this time Barbara Ker Wilson has written a novel about the possibility that Jane went to Australia.

So the Premise seemed quite a nice tidy and fascinating bit of history from the start. A look at how one of the world's most famous novellists survivied and judged Australia at the time of its very early colonialism. It seems material ripe for a witty Jane Austen piece of observation. However Wilson does not have Jane Austen's eye for detail and witty observation. I found the novel difficult to finish, and not as compelling as I hoped. There is certainly merit in it and many will very much enjoy this book. Unfortunately I think I went into it with too many expectations and felt quite let down by it.

Worth dipping in to especially if you enjoy other books where other authors have 'finished' novels of Austen's.