Wednesday 24 November 2010

A World Away by Pauline Francis

A World Away tells the story of love, separation and being different.

The book is set in Queen Elizabeth the First's era, it starts off with colonists moving to the USA and trying to start their own colony there.They also try to befriend the natives living there. However their plan doesn't go so well and they end up capturing a young girl called Nadie.

So the colonists make the journey back to England and Nadie soon finds herself living with a priest and his sister in Plymouth. The people living there have never seen a black person before and they are at first wary of her, apart from the young blacksmith of the town, Tom.

Tom and Nadie fall in love but it is impossible for them to have a relationship her being black and because she refused to be baptised (believing in her own gods) mean that she could not be married to him.

But then Nadie has the opportunity to go back to her own land and people, she longs to go but she cannot leave Tom, so Tom agrees to come with her. Nadie is at first disrespected by her people for leaving them (not that she had any choice in the matter) but they agree to take her again but not her loved one.
Will Tom and Nadie ever be able to find love?

A World Away is a brilliant novel and a wonderful, gripping story. I give it an eight out of ten!

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