Review: Different tale that was interesting......but not typical story
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 1, 2014
3  starsIf you can get by the fact that a young girl isSold to three men to be there contractual wife for 5 years, you can get into the story.Polly is a young maiden that is desperate for food so she steals a ring and is captured.  She is sent to prison and offered the choice to go to Australia and be the wife of three men since there is a shortage of women.Bad luck seems to follow Polly.  She is falsely accused of many things that she didn't do and is punished by a cane, and belt for it.  There are a few spankings given in love by one of her husbands, but mostly the spankings are punishment for misdeeds that she didn't commit.  No one ever believes her because they have the prejudice of  her past and her low station in life.In her new life she meets the three farmers that are to be her husbands.  She cares for two of the three, and the third, John, is quite a nasty man that tries to make trouble for her.  Polly is again wrongly accused because of prejudice against her past run in with the law and her current situation.The story was interesting and luckily Polly has a knight in shining armor that comes to her rescue.  The premise of three husbands for one wife was hard to get over.  The story was interesting and I found myself yelling at the book, don't go there....but of course they couldn't hear me.  There were sex scenes that were somewhat graphic.  Polly was a virgin before taking this offer, and she must constantly give herself to her "husbands" for which she will eventually be paid at the end of 5 years.  So she is a prostitute of sorts, just limited to three men who she also cooks and keeps house for.You are drawn to Polly and her predicaments.  She is like able.  The rest of the characters you don't get to see much about who they are or how they got there. You only see how they interact with Polly.  That would have been nice to learn more about the other characters. How they got to where they were.  Why they came to Australia.  How they became a small group of three.  What was some of the baggage that made them what they became.  The book wasn't a character study per say.  You were told this is how they were and didn't get to see a deeper view.  It was a tale of the trials of Polly and how she emerges at the end. It had a happy ending.  No cliff hangers.  You didn't see Polly in depth either, just how she made it through her trials.  I liked the book, but it is not your typical story.