The cover of this book is so pretty and the writing inside is beautiful.
This is an excellent historical fiction book set in both Australia and China. The difference in the 2 cultures is captured so well.
A great read

This book sits pretty comfortably in my wheelhouse. I love stories about how migrants arrived in Australia, and what it might have been like for them, especially when they centre on women - I love seeing women's stories written back into history.

I think the bits of the story told from Little Cat's perspective were my favourite. I really liked how strong she was, and the way she fought against the restrictions society put around her. I really felt the wonder of all the things she was experiencing for the first time. I thought Jones did an excellent job of giving her two heroines distinct voices - their chapters definitely felt different.

Violet was an interesting character. I couldn't decide whether I disliked or admired her. In the narrative told from her perspective she is open and unapologetic about the fact she is basically out to catch a husband, but it was also clear that there was little else that she could do if she wanted to thrive in her new life.

I thought this was a fairly easy and quick read about a time and place in our history that I haven't read lot about before (something I hope to change!).

It was a really nice book and I learned a lot about Asian culture. Turned the pages fast and engaged to the story and characters.
Thanks to NG and the publishers for this copy.

China and Australia.
The story of a Chinese girl who does not want the traditional life, she learns and practices Kung Fu with her twin brother. The insights into Chinese daily life are fascinating and one can't help but admire Little Cat for her bravery and stubbornness. when she leaves for Australia to become a gold prospector her life gets even more interesting and dangerous, The journey she undertakes is made more eventful as she is disguised as a boy.
Victoria a selfish girl in Australia also gets involved in the lives of the gold prospectors after being sacked from her job as a governess, she turns out to be resourceful. and intuitive.
A story of strong women not afraid to stand up for themselves in their quest for a future.

Another page turner story from Carol Jones. I love how she always adds our knowledge about Asian culture in her story.

t's 1856, on the Pearl River Delta in China, and Little Cat is tired of picking leaves for the ungrateful silk worms. She'd rather be "trading punches with her brother, listening to gossip in the girls' house or daydreaming under the nammu trees." Each member of her family has a role to play and a job to do to keep the family silk business and the family fed. Little Cat and her twin Second Brother were friends with Young Wu, the son of the wealthy landowner, who held their future in his hands. Second Brother decides the only way to acquire more land for his family is to travel to New Gold Mountain in Australia and prospect for gold. Much to the chagrin of Little Cat, Second Brother gains the support of the Mo elders who guarantee money for his passage. Little Cat finds herself in the position of having to flee her hometown and pleads with Second Brother to take her with him.

It's 1856, in Robetown, South Australia, and Violet Hartley is governess to the children of a wealthy family. Violet has fled from her home to South Australia under questionable circumstances. She's young, beautiful, and on the lookout for a wealthy husband. When one of the children in her charge dies and she is dismissed from her position without references or money, she begs to accompany two hundred Celestials on a perilous journey to the goldfields.

5☆ A Unique, Inspiring, Captivating Historical Read.

Oh wow what a Unique, Captivating, Poignant Historical Read!

Two very different women wanting the same thing, to be free and to be themselves.
So they both escape, where there paths will cross, on their journey to Australia.

Little Cat feels like she is undervalued as she is a girl.
She can do the same as her Twin brother, fight like him, do the same work, but she will never be equal.
Living in China, her parents and culture believe women shouldn't do the jobs of men.
They want her to become a lady and settle with a husband.
But that's not Little Cat, she wants more.
So she hatches a plan to escape disguised as a boy!
Unfortunately for her, she is about to walk the path to danger!

Violet is a governess, and she too is running away from her past.
The two women meet on their journey to escape.

The Boy with Blue Trousers is such a unique, captivating and inspiring read, that follows two women on their path of Self Discovery, freedom, sacrifice, but facing adversity, sexism, culture.
The setting descriptions are superbly written.
The Characters are beautifully created, very endearing, strong, courageous, determined and relatable.
I loved that there was an air of suspense and danger lurking pretty much the whole way through it added another layer of depth.

Overall The Boy with Blue Trousers is
a totally absorbing historical fiction that's beautifully written and is told with such depth and emotion that will Touch your heart and keep you turning the pages till the early hours.

Thank you to Head of Zeus for this copy which I reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

I really enjoyed Carol Jones’s previous novel, The Concubine’s Child, set partly in 1930s Malaysia. What I particularly admired about the book was the rich cultural detail. The same is true of The Boy With Blue Trousers, especially in the early sections set in the Pearl River Delta where the reader is immersed in daily life in a small village – its inhabitants’ social customs, spiritual beliefs and traditions. Not to mention the fascinating information about the farming of silkworms!

Unlike The Concubine’s Child there is no modern day story running alongside the historical narrative, instead The Boy With Blue Trousers switches two or three chapters at a time between the stories of Little Cat and Violet Hartley. Both women have reason to flee their past and the constraints of social expectations. For me, the story of Little Cat was the most powerful and compelling because she faced the greater adversity and jeopardy. I couldn’t engage quite as fully with Violet’s story although I liked her independence of spirit. Her sense of realism about her position as a single woman and what might be necessary to enhance it was, if not admirable, at least refreshingly honest.

From the beginning, the reader is aware the two storylines will converge but not how. The intriguing prologue provides an extra layer of anticipation and the author skilfully manages the coming together of the two stories in order to keep the reader turning the pages.

The Boy With Blue Trousers will delight fans of historical fiction with its compelling story of love, duty, sacrifice and vengeance, and its wealth of cultural detail.

I love learning about the histories and cultures of different countries, so I was pleased to find that Australian author Carol Jones’ new novel, The Boy with Blue Trousers, is set in not one location but two – the mulberry groves of China and the goldfields of Australia – and introduces us to two women leading very different lives.

In 1850s China, seventeen-year-old Little Cat is growing up in a small village on the Pearl River Delta. Like the other girls in her community, she spends her days picking mulberry leaves and teasing out the threads from silkworm cocoons to produce reels of silk. It’s hard work, but it is the only life Little Cat has known and, now that she is approaching adulthood, she is growing nervous about what the future may hold. What sort of marriage will the matchmaker arrange for her? Will her husband and his family be kind? Will she have to go and live in another village far away from her own?

In the end, though, none of these things matter to Little Cat, because a disastrous encounter with the village headman, Big Wu, forces her to flee the country in fear of her life. Disguised as a boy, she embarks on a ship bound for Australia where she will join the hundreds of men heading there from China who are hoping to make their fortune in the goldfields.

Meanwhile, another young woman, Violet Hartley, has recently arrived in Australia. Violet, a governess, is trying to escape from her own past in England, and Australia seems like a place full of opportunities. When her first job, looking after two small children, proves to be not quite what she’d hoped for, she decides to accompany the Chinese immigrants on their journey – a decision that leads to her path crossing with Little Cat’s and tying the two separate threads of the story together.

The Boy with Blue Trousers is written in the form of two alternating narratives, so that we spend one or two chapters with Little Cat before switching to Violet for a while and then back again. This allows us to get to know both characters equally well and to see how, although they are living in very different environments, they face similar struggles as unconventional, independent women who don’t conform to the expectations of their respective societies. I have to admit, I didn’t like Violet at all; while I did have sympathy for her situation and the loss of her reputation following an affair with a married man in England – unfair when the man involved didn’t suffer in the same way – I just didn’t find her a very appealing character, especially in comparison to Little Cat, whom I loved.

I had a few problems with this book – apart from not liking Violet, I thought the way in which her story came together with Little Cat’s and the reaction they had to each other felt odd and unconvincing – but I was impressed by the sense of place Carol Jones creates. I particularly liked the descriptions of the mulberry trees, river banks, alleys and courtyards of Sandy Bottom Village, Little Cat’s home in the Pearl River Delta, but the coastal landscape of Robetown in South Australia is also beautifully portrayed.

Carol Jones is not an author I’ve come across until now, but I see she has written another novel, The Concubine’s Child, set in Malaysia, which also sounds interesting.

The story of two cultures colliding.

Mo Lin Fa, better known as Little Cat, is determined to be treated as equal to her brothers. However, under Chinese culture during the 1800s this is impossible to expect even if she can fight like a man thanks to her twin brother, Mo Wing Yong’s training.

Her eldest brother, Wing Keong wants to marry Siu Wan. Unfortunately, his parents do not have the money to pay for this marriage. Wing Keong’s only way to find the money is to join the many thousands of Chinese men who are travelling to Australia to dig for gold.

Little Cat is forced to take his place after a very serious incident which would have seen her facing arrest for murder. She must disguise herself as a young man to join the many as they journey to the goldfields.

A scandal caused Violet Hartley to flee England and find work as a governess with the Wallace children, Alice and James in Robetown. She meets Lewis Thomas, a bullocky who travels with his team of bullocks and cart between the goldfields and Robetown. It’s his task to guide the Chinese when they arrive in Australia to the goldfields as they disembarkation is in Robetown. When Violet’s employment ends abruptly, she begs him to let her accompany him to the goldfields.

I’m giving the novel four stars based on the storyline following Little Cat. Carol Jones’ research for this novel’s authenticity of both the Chinese culture Little Cat lived under, and the part the Chinese played in Australia’s history. Any author who has me searching the internet for more information on a subject wins my vote as being brilliant. It’s well worth reading of their impact on Australia then and now.

Someone like Lewis Thomas would also have played a huge part in helping the Chinese reach the goldfields. However, I found other parts of the story and the characters quite dismal and farfetched, namely the pages devoted to Violet.

Treebeard

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

The Boy with Blue Trousers by Carol Jones

Historical multicultural story of love, honor, family and so much more. Two women from opposite corners of the world end up far from home in Australia. Both are doing their best to survive and hopefully thrive. Both have dreams and desires, wishes and hopes, pasts to run from and futures to embrace. How they arrive in Australia and then find the direction they will move into the future is a beautifully written enthralling story that kept me reading without stop from first page through last.

Little Cat wants more than she believes she will find in the Chinese village she grew up in. She has been at her twin brother’s side so much that she has learned to fight, listened to stories and has dreamed of “something more”. She has enjoyed her life in the village, has friends, loves her family and contemplates never marrying but instead is searching for that “something more” she dreams of. One day something happens that changes her life drastically. To save herself and her family she undertakes the journey to the gold fields in Australia taking the path that was supposed to have been taken by her twin brother instead. There is a man bent on vengeance on her trail and it is a close call for her more than once in this story.

Violet Hartley is a governess that ran into a spot of trouble in England. When offered the opportunity of a new life in a new country she grabbed it and headed to Australia. She has big dreams that are destroyed, again, by circumstances that occur while doing her job. Not wanting to ever give up and still clinging to her dreams she heads out on the same trail that Little Cat and many other Chinese immigrants will take hoping that when she reaches her destination her future will become clear and she will prosper.

What I liked:
* The descriptions of life in China with the women talking, the families interacting, the expectations mentioned and the “feel” of the culture as it was presented in the story
* The characters – well developed and easy to relate to
* The story – swept me up and drew me in
* That it wasn’t easy for anybody...not really
* The men in the story – Young Wu, Lewis, Little Cat’s brothers, Big Nose, Uncle Wu…
* The cultural aspects of the story
* Pretty much everything, really

What I did not like:
* The baddie that caused Little Cat to flee
* Not knowing what became of Little Cat’s twin brother (is his story to be told in another book?)
* Having to say goodbye when the book ended.

Thank you to NetGalley and Head of Zeus for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

I struggled to get into this too many side characters who we aren’t properly introduced to or go by nicknames etc, it got a bit confusing and when it’s hard work just to figure out who shall the characters are I lose interest. When you get past this and the action finally begins it picks up pace and gets interesting, it’s a good look at the hard lives at this time and I did enjoy the different perspectives, but just found it hard work at times. Enjoyable read once you get past this.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion