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Book Summary and Reviews of Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville

Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville

Restless Dolly Maunder

by Kate Grenville

  • Published:
  • Dec 2023, 256 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The international bestselling author of The Secret River and A Room Made of Leaves returns with a fictionalised account of her grandmother's life, commemorating a strong female character making the best out of the times and society she was born in.

Dolly Maunder is born at the end of the nineteenth century, when society's long-locked doors are just starting to creak ajar for determined women. Growing up in a poor farming family in rural New South Wales, Dolly spends her life doggedly pushing at those doors. A husband and two children do not deter her from searching for love and independence.

Restless Dolly Maunder is a subversive, triumphant tale of a pioneering woman working her way through a world of limits and obstacles, who is able – despite the cost – to make a life she could call her own.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Kate Grenville spins a delicately teasing novel about the inherent untrustworthiness of the official record ... beautiful and subtle." ―Financial Times

"A memorable portrait of a proto-feminism determined to free herself from society's expectations." ―Sunday Times

This information about Restless Dolly Maunder was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Kate Grenville

Kate Grenville's bestselling novel The Secret River received the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. The Idea of Perfection won the Orange Prize. Grenville's other novels include Sarah Thornhill, The Lieutenant, Lilian's Story, Dark Places, Joan Makes History and A Room Made of Leaves.

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