In the 1800s, Australia was little more than an outdoor prison, a miserable dumping ground for the dishonest trash and riffraff sent there from the British Isles. The district of Parramatta, in the Australian state of New South Wales, was one of these wild and undomesticated places, populated mainly by convicts. Only the young and adventurous ventured there to start sheep or cattle ranches, where the convict labor was cheap and the radical weather unpredictable. When Eugenia, portrayed as a fragile, proper English lady, agrees to marry Gilbert Massingham, an ambitious man determined to start one of the first vineyards in this untamed land, she doesn’t realize what she is in for. This story about the love, betrayals, and compromises made by Eugenia and Gilbert is interesting. Still, the history of the early settling of the land down under is what I enjoyed most. ( )

The Vines of Yarrabee by Dorothy Eden is a 2013 Open Road Media publication. (Originally published in 1968)

Well, that was depressing.

Eugenia leaves her home in England, traveling to the wilderness of Australia to marry Gilbert, the owner of a vineyard plantation. It becomes immediately clear that Eugenia is second fiddle to her husband’s vineyard. Matters only get worse, when Gilbert brings in a widowed and pregnant convict to be a maid at their newly built home, appropriately named Yarrabee.

Eugenia struggles to find her role in the home, and in her marriage. Gilbert treats her like an ornament, a refined, delicate creature, smothering her nearly to death. Meanwhile, the maid secures a permanent role in the household, rolling up her sleeves and becoming more help to Gilbert than he would ever allow Eugenia to be.

As the years pass, children are born, the vines prosper and struggle, there are passions and heartbreaks and tragedies, while each person is trapped in a defined role, they are helpless to break free from, without ever truly knowing or understanding the people they are the most familiar with.

Those familiar with Dorothy Eden may associate her with the Gothic style romantic suspense genre that was so popular in the sixties and seventies.

This book doesn’t not fall into that category, but is, instead, a family saga, and pure historical fiction. There is no mystery, or supernatural element, and while Yarabee is a large house, it’s newly built, is not haunted, or crumbling, or set on the cliffs of Cornwall.

The story gets off to a slow start, but eventually, I found myself absorbed in Eugenia’s sad battle with homesickness, and the tragic way her life unfolds. While Gilbert’s dominance and his obsession with his vines makes it hard to like him, Eugenia could also try one’s patience. Of the two, though, I did sympathize with Eugenia, who was trapped in the proverbial ivory tower, but longed for more out her marriage and her life.

As I continued to read, I was buoyed by a few possibilities, but was disappointed over and over again, by the way the things turned out.

I could see a type of personal triumph, I suppose, with the way things turned out in the end. Unfortunately, it was not the way I would have liked the book to end. These events should have transpired much earlier in the book. As such, the conclusion left me feeling dispirited and unsatisfied, with some question as to how things might have proceeded from there for our Eugenia.

While I have read several of Eden’s novels over the years, there are still many I have yet to read, but to date, this one is my least favorite.

2.5 stars ( )

Picked up when I was on an Australia kick.  Tried to read it finally, but I just am not interested in the miseries of ppl with more 'breeding' and money than inner nobility and personal resources.