Review of 'The Colour' by Rose Tremain

Another fine novel from Rose Tremain. Great characters, nicely constructed, beautiful nature descriptions, a good feel for historical context. Not a happy feel-good sort of book - lots of unhappiness - but no less good for that.

Lots of nice detail about the mechanics of a gold rush, and something about the presence of Chinese migrants in it.

I think it's particularly good in representing the other-worldly feeling of New Zealand, which I remember from my short trip there in the late 1980s. Hard to characterize exactly, but I think it comes from NZ having a temperate latitude much like North Western Europe, but very different species of animals and plants...so it feels like a weird, imperfect copy of Britain.