The Fever Tree
With its cinematic descriptions and compulsively readable plotline, this debut novel may well become a book-club favorite. Frances Irvine is left destitute after the sudden death of her father, who had overinvested in railroad stocks. Victorian London offered only limited choices to women, and so she opts for a loveless marriage to family friend Edwin Matthews, a doctor in Kimberley, South Africa. But while onboard a ship bound for the Cape, Frances falls heedlessly in love with a roguish diamond smuggler, a fact that is not lost on her husband-to-be. Life on the veld proves to be unmanageable for a London lady who can pin her hair five different ways but can’t figure out how to make coffee, while Edwin works tirelessly to vaccinate Africans against smallpox, much to the consternation of the powerful diamond-mine owner. Despite her cluelessness for much of the novel, Frances proves her mettle in the end, and McVeigh’s fluid prose is a pure pleasure to read. With its social-justice angle; exotic, ruggedly beautiful location; and universal theme of emotional growth, this will have wide appeal. --Joanne Wilkinson