One of the most interesting things about author Heather Rose is how different each of her novels are, in genre, scope and interests. Her best-known novel, 2016’s The Museum of Modern Love, is a defiantly literary work, centres on Marina Abramovic’s performance art and the people who watch it; her follow-up, 2019’s Bruny, is part spy thriller and part speculative fiction. She has also written crime fiction, a coming-of-age novel and a modern fable.
A Great Act of Love represents another genre shift, blending historical fiction with high adventure and romance. The novel follows Caroline Colbert, who has reinvented herself as the wealthy widow Mrs Douglas as she arrives in Hobart Town, Van Diemen’s Land in the late 1830s and establishes herself in a cottage with a disused vineyard, determined to bring it back into production. Her father, Jacques-Louis, who spent his childhood working in the champagne vineyards of Louis XIV, is serving time as a convict on Norfolk Island – and Caroline believes her endeavour may just offer up a chance to save him.
