Years of Stone

In the first book of Beth Camp’s series on the McDonnell clan, we get to meet the whole family. I don’t want to tell you how that book ends, but I will say that you want to read more about these people. In book two, “Years of Stone”, Beth focuses in on two characters, Mac the head of the clan, and Deidre, the woman who loves him and puts everything on the line for him. And I mean everything. She is one dedicated chick. She will stop at nothing to keep Mac in her life, but along the way, she remains compassionate to everyone she runs into, helping them whenever she can.

Meanwhile, Mac is trying the best that he can to survive the harshest of conditions living as a convict in Tasmania of 1842. I think it is rather crazy that anyone thought it was worth the money to ship all these convicts from Britain, Scotland and the like, but that is what they did, and that is how Tasmania, and Australia as well, became countries. I found it fascinating, so I did some of my own research. Not that I was questioning Beth, but like I said, I was fascinated.

But I needn’t have gone searching for more information. Everything there is to know about this time in the struggling formation of Tasmania – called Van Diemen’s Land at the time – is in Beth’s book. It’s wonderful the way she was able to weave so many facts into her story without the reader realizing it. 

I cannot wait for Beth’s next book, to hear how several more members of the family are faring.