The Botanist’s Daughter, by Kayte Nunn

Gardener Anna is renovating an old house in central Sydney, left to her by her beloved grandmother. She uncovers an old box full of botanical illustrations and starts to investigate the mystery of how they came to be in her house. Anna’s story is alternated with that of Elizabeth in 1880s Cornwall. The daughter of a botanist/explorer, Elizabeth is determined to continue her father’s legacy of discovering and documenting rare and useful plants. The scene is set for a rollicking adventure story of a woman breaking boundaries, with interesting parallels and lessons to learn in the present day story. Not exactly ground breaking storytelling, but potentially enjoyable. Unfortunately it is undermined by the poor quality of the writing, with paper-thin characterisation and horrendously clunky dialogue. There are lots of good ideas bubbling around and the botany angle is interesting, but it suffers from the same over-exposition as the history. There is just too much telling and not enough doing, compounded by a few gaping plot holes and some literally incredible coincidences. The book finishes on an odd, unsettling note that possibly flags a sequel, or just indicates a continuation of the ostensibly solved mystery to lift it above a bog-standard romance novel.