What do readers think of Song of the Spirits by Sarah Lark? Write your own review.

I can understand the unease of the Maori. We were in Queenstown several years ago and went to a presentation and dinner with Maori. To watch them dance their traditional dances, their size and fierceness were palatable. They were wonderful men, but large and fierce looking. The book takes you through 5 years of life of the early settlers in the 1890s. Very well written, but a long read.

I must admit I had lofty expectations for this novel. I was hoping for another great family saga like The Thornbirds or Fall of the Giants considering that this is a very, very big book. I have found that that usually means either I am enthralled with the story and characters and don't want it to end or the book just goes on forever. Unfortunately, this book was more of the latter. The book reads more like a romance novel especially the first part and I found myself plodding through without much enjoyment. The characters and mostly unappealing, frustrating at times and just plain unbelievable at others. The author did try to create suspense and there were moments when this succeeded. But, like most romance novels, it was difficult to get too caught up in the suspense as I pretty much knew everything would work out for all of the "good guys" in the end. Given the length of this book, I was hoping to learn a lot about New Zealand and, especially the Maori people but the information was limited and really just made me hunger for more. Truly it could have been set anywhere, anyplace with sheep farmers, miners and indigenous people. I would only recommend this book to anyone looking for a very long, feel good story with some suspense thrown in for good measure.