Told across two time frames, the story follows Mellie and PJ and their shared love of fossils. Mellie is a young girl suffering trauma after the death of her father and is recovering from Chicken Pox when she is sent to stay with a friend of the family who took her in. PJ has returned from working as an ambulance driver in WW1 and is trying to reconcile with her father after the death of her brothers. When PJ finds a skeleton, the worlds of Mellie and PJ collide and the past meets the present (with a few unanticipated twists). I really enjoyed this story.

Book blurb…
A fossil discovered at London's Natural History Museum leads one woman back in time to nineteenth century Australia and a world of scientific discovery and dark secrets in this compelling historical mystery.
The Hunter Valley 1847
The last thing Mellie Vale remembers before the fever takes her is running through the bush as a monster chases her - but no one believes her story. In a bid to curb Mellie's overactive imagination, her benefactors send her to visit a family friend, Anthea Winstanley. Anthea is an amateur palaeontologist with a dream. She is convinced she will one day find proof the great sea dragons - the ichthyosaur and the plesiosaur - swam in the vast inland sea that millions of years ago covered her property at Bow Wow Gorge. Soon, Mellie shares that dream for she loves fossil hunting too...
1919
When Penelope Jane Martindale arrives home from the battlefields of World War I with the intention of making her peace with her father and commemorating the death of her two younger brothers in the trenches, her reception is not as she had hoped. Looking for distraction, she finds a connection between a fossil at London's Natural History museum and her brothers which leads her to Bow Wow Gorge. But the gorge has a sinister reputation - 70 years ago people disappeared. So when PJ uncovers some unexpected remains, it seems as if the past is reaching into the present and she becomes determined to discover what really happened all that time ago

My thoughts…
A fascinating plot and subject matter (as expected with this author). I was kept guessing about the secret and when it came to what actually happened at Bow Wow Gorge. Expertly told using a dual time frame narrative structure, readers are led to the future by the events of the past.

I connected with all the characters, particularly Mellie and the life she led until Anthea entered her life. It took me a while to get the connections for her brothers to the secrets of Bow Wow Gorge but I was not disappointed.

Once again a great read from Tea Cooper and I look forward to more incredible stories.

Meticulously researched, as is always the case with a Téa Cooper book, The Fossil Hunter, was a fascinating and captivating read. Set largely in and the small town of Wollombi, north west of Sydney, this dual timeline story is told through the eyes of PJ (Penelope Jane) Martindale in 1919 and Anthea Winstanley and her protégée Mellie in 1847. All are fascinated with fossils, particularly those of an ichthyosaur whose fossilised remains have been discovered in Bow Wow Gorge near Wollombi. Mysery surrounds Anthea and Mellie and there are rumours of bunyips in the gorge, which have successfully minimised the number of visitors there.
All three characters were beautifully developed so that you felt you were just watching them through a window. The two timelines are skilfully interlinked and as the story progresses the mysteries become more intriguing. I was on the edge of my seat for much of this book, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

Tea Cooper is a favourite author of mine and I eagerly await each new release. Some how The Fossil Hunter reminded me of another Australia classic Picnic at Hanging Rock......young girls in the great rural-bush Australian landscape. Maybe The Fossil Hunter will become another Australian classic too?
A dual timeline story set in 1847 and 1919, centering around PJ (Penelope) who visits a London museum and views fossils from near her own home back in Australia. This unlocks an emotional attachment via her deceased brothers, who did their own fossil hunting in the same Bow Wow Gorge.
Back in 1847 Mellie hunted for dragons in the same gorge. She endured nicknames and jeers from a family of young girls who took her on holiday with them, to their aunt Anthea Winstanley. After a wary start, Anthea and Mellie become kindred spirits, bonded by their love and the excitement of fossil hunts in the gorge.
Set in New South Wales, the fictional story is an enjoyable historical mystery. With actual location names used, it is a nod to what times were actually like in those areas. Mythical stories of Bunyips stealing children are rampant. But PJ is on a mission to discover the truth of the tales of death in the caves of the gorge.
Just like fossil hunting, you need to be patient with this story, as it slowly unfolds, revealing it's secrets.
I would happily recommend this wonderful piece of historical fiction as a summer holiday read. Tea has obviously invested much research into the world of paleontology. Thank you NetGalley, Harlequin Australia and Tea Cooper for my copy.

Another excellent historical novel by Tea Cooper, fast becoming a writer I can be certain of an entertaining read. This one is set in the Hunter Valley, concerned mostly with the brilliantly named Bow Wow Gorge (a real place!) but also set in Wollombi and Kurri Kurri. It starts in alternate timelines; The first is 1847 when a group of young girls visit Anthea Winstanley, a paleontologist, interested in the fossils at Bow Wow Gorge and the second is 1919, which opens in London at the museum where Australian, PJ (Penelope Jane) finds a fossil labelled Bow Wow Gorge. As she’s from nearby Wollombi, and as she knows her brothers had visited the gorge, when she returns to Australia with fellow ambulance driver Sam, she’s interested in following up her brothers discoveries. What follows is an enjoyable mystery, with interesting characters, particularly strong females and an enjoyable read.

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this book for an honest review.

I love Tea Cooper's books and this is no exception. Beautifully written and researched with realistic characters. Always such a pleasure to read.

Set mostly in Australia in the 1840’s and 1919. This is a historical novel about the fascination of searching for fossils.
Mellie is a young girl whose parents are dead. She is cared for by the Pearson family at Wollombi in NSW and later goes to live with Anthea Winstanley at Bow Wow Gorge not far from Wollombi. Anthea Winstanley is a palaeontologist who spends her time looking for fossils and shares her love of palaeontology with the Pearson girls and their friends by having them come to stay every Easter so they can experience the thrill of finding and documenting their finds.
In 1919 Penelope Martindale, an ambulance driver during the First World War is in London waiting to return home to Australia. While waiting she visits London’s Natural History Museum where she sees a fossil that reminds her of the fossils her two brother’s we fascinated with.
The pace is fast and switches back and forward between 1840’s and 1919. It is a historical mystery and full of secrets and adventure.

It was 1847 in Wollombi, in the Hunter Valley, Australia and twelve-year-old Mellie Vale was in the grips of a fever. She had chicken pox and was very sick, but when she began to improve, she had to put up with the jeers and taunts of the two sisters where she was staying. Mellie just wanted her da but no one would say where he was. Every year the children visited Anthea Winstanley at Bow Wow Gorge and this year, Mellie went along as well. Anthea took Mellie under her wing as she could see the child was traumatized by something – she could see the cruel teasing was getting under Mellie’s skin, but was it more than that?

It was 1919 and the war was over. Penelope Jane Martindale was in London waiting for her good friend Sam, an American from Philadelphia, to arrive with Sid, his Wolseley which had been converted to an ambulance during the war. When Sam and Sid arrived, they would head for Australia. PJ’s time was filled with visits to London’s Natural History Museum where she found a fossil accredited to Anthea Winstanley of Australia. She remembered her younger brothers’ crate of fossils and their interest in searching for fossils when they’d been boys. Could it all be connected somehow?

PJ’s return to Wollombi with Sam was the beginning of a deep fascination for her of the local area, the fossils and what remained at Bow Wow Gorge. Her pa was angry with her, and she needed to right that situation, but it was while learning about the talk from locals about missing people from seventy years prior and hauntings by a bunyip had PJ wondered what secrets were there to be unearthed…

The Fossil Hunter is another fascinating look at New South Wales history, mostly fictional, by Aussie author Tea Cooper and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I found both timeframes equally enthralling, and although I don’t know Bow Wow Gorge, it does exist. I’ve been to Wollombi and it’s a lovely little town and I can imagine it back in the days of The Fossil Hunter. I have no hesitation in recommending this novel, along with all Ms Cooper’s historical stories.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my digital ARC to read in exchange for an honest review

Tea Cooper introduces us to another delightfully interesting subject in The Fossil Hunter, set in her beloved Wollombi in the Hunter Valley of NSW.

As is her trademark, the narratives follow two female characters, divided by 75 years – with timelines set in Bow Wow Gorge in 1847 and 1919.

1847- twelve year old Mellie is sent away with the daughters of her carer to a family friend, to escape the shadow of her father’s execution. It is through Mellie’s eyes we meet Anthea Winstanley – the inimitable middle-aged fossil hunter who inspires Mellie to search for what she terms ‘dragon scales.’

Fossil hunting- palaeontology -had a particularly avid following in Victoria times, and with Darwin’s theories on the origin of the species putting God’s creation in question, many found fame and fortune in unearthing fossils from cliffs and bedrock.

Lyme Regis and Mary Anning of ichthyosaur fame, is referred to in the narrative of PJ - Penelope Jane Martindale, who has returned home with her fiance after they met driving ambulances during the Great War. Although an independent and modern thinking woman, PJ still seeks approval from her Doctor father, and his acceptance that she had nothing to do with the death of her younger brothers– both were killed in France after they ran away to sign up.

A delightful mystery uncovers a trail of mistruths and speculation as PJ and Sam discover a box of labelled fossils and search to determine the truth about what PJ’s brothers had found. Encountering age-old rumours regarding missing girls and deadly bunjips, when the pair find the deserted home of Anthea Winstanley, PJ works to put an end to rumours that have perpetuated at Bow Wow Gorge for decades.

I enjoyed the Australian flavour to a subject I have only previously read set in Lyme Regis– and palaeontologist Anthea was a delightful character. With a slightly haunting quality in the theme, I couldn’t help but have visions of girls in high necked white frocks, lost in the rocks and then forgotten in time.

This is the first book that I have read by Tea Cooper and I am already looking forward to reading more. '
This story is told in parallel timelines, moving between the late 1840's and 1919. The majority of the story is set in the Hunter Valley in regional New South Wales.
PJ (short for Penelope Jane) is returning from service in the war as an ambulance officer to see her father. During the war her twin brothers were killed in France, having enlisted while underage. This appears to be something for which her father holds her to account.
While still in England PJ comes across a fossil in a London museum that appears to come from close to her home. This awakens in her a thirst for more knowledge about the fossils and the lady who found them, Mrs Anthea Winstanley.
As PJ with her friend, American Sam, who served with her as an ambulance officer, travels home to Australia she awakens local mythology about ghosts and bunyips.
Happy to recommend this wonderful piece of historical fiction. Thank you Netgalley, Harlequin Australia and HQ & MIRA for the opportunity to read this digital ARC.

I was totally engrossed in this fossil hunting story! An excellent look into Australian history.
I must research bunyips. I found myself so engaged I looked for the photos that were being described.
Dinosaur fossils are found in a gorge and the gorge needs to be cared for and protected. But history and rumours can sometimes do the job.
I enjoyed this story and will eagerly look for more by this Australian author.

Mellie Vale, lives in Wollombi, with her father and he mixes with some rough characters. With a high fever, Mellie remembers running through the Australian bush, with a bunyip chasing her, and everyone thinks she has an overactive imagination. Bunyips are mystical creatures that live in the bush and near lagoons, they make a roaring noise and Aboriginal people believe they exist. The Pearson family give her a place to stay, she has no idea what happened to her dad, and their two daughters Lydia and Bea, bully Mellie.

When Lydia and Bea, Ella and Grace Ketteringham, and Millie are given an oppituinty to stay with Anthea Winstanley, a family friend of the Pearson's, Mellie’s nervous, and Anthea's an amateur paleontologist. Anthea’s interested in fossils, and convinced she will find proof of the ancient sea dragons, and the ichthyosaur and the plesiosaur. The Hunter Valley was once a vast in land sea, full of prehistorical marine life, with the right conditions they eventually turned into fossils, and Anthea’s property at Bow Bow Gorge is the ideal location.

Penelope Jane Martindale is an Australian ambulance driver, she served in France during WW I, and she’s waiting for a ship to take her home and she visits the Natural History museum in London. Her brothers Dan and Riley died in the war, as young boys they collected fossils and Penelope also finds them interesting. She travels to Lyme Regis, to visit the graves of three famous women paleontologists and speaks to a Mr. Wood.

Returning to Australia with her fiancé Samuel Groves, her father isn’t happy to see her and he blames her for her brother’s deaths. Penelope discovers a connection between a fossil at the museum in London, her brother’s fossil collections and where they were found. Determined to discover the truth she travels to Bow Wow Gorge, locals don’t like talking about the place, it has a sinister past, and she meets two influential women Dr. Mavis Elliot and Ms. Amelia Baldwin.

The Fossil Hunter is a dual timeline historical mystery, set in 1847 and 1919, its full of scientific information, interesting characters, long kept secrets, startling discoveries, and complicated family relationships. I received a copy of this book from NetGalley and Harlequin Australia in exchange for an honest review, Tea Cooper at her very best, I highly recommend reading this book, and five stars from me.

The Fossil Hunter is an absorbing read, effectively using dual timelines to explore the lives of women and the emerging study of Australian fossils in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. Interwoven into the plot is a 70-year-old mystery, linking the novel's 1847 storyline with its 1919 present.
The story opens in early 1847 with Mellie, an unhappy and traumatised young girl, recovering from a nasty case of chickenpox as well as a terrifying incident in the bush, and the unexplained absence of her father. Mellie's been taken in by the family of Dr. Pearson in the Hunter Valley (NSW) town of Wollombi, but is unsympathetically bullied by the domestic staff and the daughters of the house. Every year, the Pearson daughters Lydia and Bea and their local friends, Ella and Grace Ketteringham, look forward to spending ten days with widowed "Aunt" Anthea Winstanley at her bushland property, Bow Wow. Hoping to aid Mellie's convalescence with a change of scenery, Mrs. Pearson decides to send a nervous and reluctant Mellie to accompany the other girls. For Mellie, this proves a revelation, as she quickly forms a bond with Anthea and develops a fascination with the fossils she excavates from the gorge located on her property. Anthea has recently discovered an unusual fossil, which she thinks may be the vertebrae of an ichthyosaur - an ancient marine reptile, fossils of which have been discovered previously in other parts of the world, notably by Mary Anning in Lyme Regis, England. As Anthea waits hopefully for professional advice on the fossil, she leads the group of girls in delicate excavation work and careful cataloguing of their finds. But life at Bow Wow is far from idyllic - Bea and Grace are relentless in their teasing of Mellie, while the older girls, Lydia and Ella, are more concerned with their looming search for husbands than the "unladylike" work of collecting fossils. Anthea's irritation turns to alarm, however, when a mysterious stranger arrives at Bow Wow, expressing an interest in purchasing part of the property.
In 1919, the Great War having finally drawn to a close, Australian Ambulance Volunteer Penelope Jane "PJ" Martindale is kicking her heels in London, awaiting the arrival of her close friend and colleague, American Captain Sam Groves, who is delayed in returning from the continent with his converted Wolseley ambulance, referred to as "Sid". She visits the Natural History Museum, and is fascinated to view fossils catalogued as having been discovered by an "A. Winstanley" at Bow Wow Gorge, New South Wales. The fossils capture her imagination, as her younger brothers - both of whom died during the war, like so many young men - had been interested in collecting fossils, and had often visited Bow Wow, not far from the family home in Wollombi. PJ dreams of honouring her brothers' memory by bringing their ambition to fruition - uncover a full Australian ichthyosaur fossil and name it Ichthyosaurus martindalii. Her arrival back in Australia with Sam - who has by this time proposed - is not as welcoming as she'd hoped - her doctor father blames her personally for the enlistment and subsequent deaths of her brothers. Keen to escape the awkwardness of the family home - the same house in which the Pearson family lived 70 years previously - PJ and Sam set out to explore Bow Wow Gorge. They set out looking for fossils, but unwittingly come across skeletonised human remains in a cave off the gorge. Their discovery prompts a series of meetings with local personalities and revelations about the history of Bow Wow Gorge. What happened at the gorge seventy years ago and whose are the remains that have been hidden for so long?
Like author Tea Cooper, I was fortunate to visit the town of Lyme Regis in the UK at an inquisitive young age, and was also fascinated with the story of Mary Anning and others who pioneered the field of palaeontology, despite the social, academic and physical barriers they faced as women. While the plot and central characters of The Fossil Hunter are fictionalised, the inclusion of a visit by PJ to the Museum at Lyme Regis draws some real historical content into the book - that said, parts of the narrative don't fit the real historical timeline, as the real Anning died from breast cancer in March 1947, contemporaneously with the story's Anthea and girls searching for fossils at Bow Wow.
Tea Cooper's creation of an evocative setting is masterful - I wasn't surprised to read that she'd spent time in both Wollombi and at Bow Wow (a modern farmhouse now stands on the site she describes as Anthea's home) while researching for the book. The setting is simultaneously beautiful and somewhat menacing, calling to mind Australian classics such as Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock - an impression solidified by PJ's imagining of young women clad in muslin dresses posing against a geological backdrop. Given the strange sounds and light of the bush, it's not surprising that Australian indigenous people and colonial settlers imagined the existence of strange bush-swamp monsters, referred to as bunyips, quinkins or yowies, (the now common term bunyip has been traced to the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia language of the indigenous groups based in present Victoria). Tea Cooper incorporates into her narrative a curious incident around the purported discovery of a bunyip skull, and its temporary display in Sydney, which actually occurred in 1847.
The Fossil Hunter is a thought-provoking and entertaining read, with well-developed characters and an evocative setting in rural-bush Australia. Tea Cooper has created convincing storylines in not one, but two distinct historical periods, subtly exploring the limitations that applied to the rights and opportunities of women in both timeframes. I was fascinated with Cooper's integration of the real-life inspirations for the "Doctor's House" at Wollombi and the Bow Wow homestead and gorge. The mystery storyline is intriguing, with the reader given insight ahead of the characters as to where the truth lies.
I'd highly recommend The Fossil Hunter to readers who enjoy well-researched historical fiction, especially stories about women's experiences and Australian settings. Any reader who, like myself, has a personal interest in the story of Mary Anning and other pioneering women of science will find this a stimulating read.
My thanks to the author, Tea Cooper, publisher Harlequin Australia, HQ & MIRA and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title prior to its release on 27 October 2021.

4.5★s
The Fossil Hunter is a historical novel by Australian author, Teà Cooper. In early 1847, twelve-year-old Mellie Vale is sure her short life is at its lowest point: her mother and baby brother have drowned; her father has left and not returned; and her home and her meagre possessions have been destroyed in a fire to contain the chicken pox she had contracted.

Dr Pearson’s family took her in, but she is mercilessly bullied by his staff, one of his daughters, and their friends. When the girls travel to Bow Wow Gorge to stay with Edna Pearson’s good friend and renowned palaeontologist, Anthea Winstanley, Mellie is wary. But she is soon won over by this rather strange woman’s excitement about the possible discovery of the skeleton of an ichthyosaur: the picture she shows them is clearly of a dragon, and Mellie would love to be a dragon hunter.

In 1919, as Penelope Jane Martindale waits for Captain Samuel Groves to arrive in London, she heads into the Natural History Museum, the very last place she saw her twin brothers, Dan and Riley, before they were killed in the war. Recalling their enthusiasm for fossils, she wanders into that section only to happen upon fossils from right near her home in Wollombi, NSW, which were found by a woman! Immediately fascinated, she decides to investigate further, as a sort of tribute to her brothers.

When PJ and Sam arrive in Wollombi with their war ambulance, locals are very closed-mouthed about Bow Wow Gorge, the actual location that her brothers went looking. When they eventually get to Bow Wow, they find a boarded-up house and some outbuildings. The Gorge has, PJ tells Sam, a haunted feel. Their search for fossils is almost fruitless; the piece they bring home is not at all what they first believe, and exposes what could well be a murder mystery.

This dual timeline story is told by Mellie and Anthea in the mid-nineteenth Century, and by PJ in the early twentieth Century. The depth of Cooper’s research is apparent on every page and her descriptive prose is very evocative: the sights, sounds and smells of the Australian bush are particularly well-rendered. The element of mystery will keep the reader enthralled through to the final pages of this superb Australian historical fiction.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harlequin Australia.

‘In this moment she recognised that her curiosity about the past - this house, Bow Wow Gorge, its fossils and Anthea Winstanley - had become a consuming passion. Who was the elusive woman and what had made her leave this place?’

A new Australian historical fiction book by Tea Cooper is reason to celebrate as she guarantees great escapism. I have enjoyed all of Tea’s previous works as they have proven to be consistently engaging and masterfully crafted tales of mystery and intrigue.

In her latest offering, The Fossil Hunter, Tea provides the perfect blend of fact and fiction in a riveting historical mystery. Giving her readers a dual narrative timeline set in the years 1847 and 1919, Tea has cleverly placed both people and incidents that let her readers gather all the clues to place together for a satisfying conclusion.

‘You have to be patient. You can look, and look, and see nothing and then the next moment the very thing you’ve been searching for is right in front of your eyes, where it has sat forever. It’s a lot like life.’

I fully appreciated how the mysteries of the past lent beautifully into the present timeline of discovery. I felt the themes ranging from folklore to scientific discoveries, or bullying and PTSD were sensitively presented by Tea. Along with unique characters and family secrets, Tea included such fascinating information on fossil collecting and interesting scientific revelations.

‘Only at Bow Wow, beneath the dense canopy of the trees, did Anthea truly find peace, the place where the layers of life reached back to the beginning of time, before a single human had walked the land, before the earth solidified. From the towering sandstone cliffs to the meandering creek, which over millions of years had carved a narrow winding gorge, the landscape had slowly revealed its secrets.’

Tea is to be congratulated for presenting such an engaging and comprehensive tale. The settings both in England and Australia are authentic, particularly with the incorporation of real life events such as the fossil discoveries in Lyme Regis in England. It is the everyday cultural feel, from traipsing down Bow Wow Gorge in the Hunter Valley, to visiting the Natural Museum in London that Tea effortlessly includes the reader so seamlessly into her riveting tale.

Congratulations Tea on once again proving your prose is up there with the best. From strong protagonists, to family drama and mystery, to the breathtaking vistas of the bush - I highly recommend the tale that is, The Fossil Hunter.

‘PJ took one last look at the dappled gorge and, tucking the fossil in her pocket, left behind the fascinating secrets of Bow Wow Gorge, regret prickling her skin.’









This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

4.5 Stars
Tea Cooper has given us yet another brilliant story blending historical fiction with mystery. We have a theme of palaeontology, bunyips and murder in the Australian bush in this intriguing dual timeline piece, The Fossil Hunter.

Mellie Vale, twelve years of age lives in Wollombi in the Hunter Valley, Australia with her father and it’s the year 1847. Mellie’s mother and baby brother are deceased and her father now associates with some shady characters. The last thing Mellie remembers before the fever got her was running through the bush, footsteps following behind her….a monster!

Mellie is taken in by Dr. Pearson and his family to recover, she is not told where her father is. She’s later sent on a visit to their family friend Anthea Winstanely who lives st Bow Wow. Anthea is a palaeontologist and Mellie becomes fasinated in searching for fossils with her and looking for proof of existance of the prehistoric great sea-dragons in Australia.

London 1919 - Penelope Jane Martindale (PJ) has served as an ambulance driver on the battlefields of France during the war. Now that the war has ended she is on her way back home to Australia and has stopped to visit London’s Natural History Museum. Here PJ discovers a fossil found at Bow Wow Gorge in The Hunter Valley, near her home and where her deceased brothers used to go searching for the fossils they would bring home.

PJ and her American boyfriend Sam explore the gorge for fossils once back in Australia and make some shocking discoveries. Bow Wow Gorge has a dark history, the locals believe girls disappeared there some seventy years ago.

I’ve always loved everything I’ve read by Tea Cooper and this was no exception.

I was more than a little surprised to see that this is the first book I have read by this author! It will not be the last.

The Fossil Hunter is set in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales and has dual time lines, both of them historical. The story revolves around Mellie in 1847 and PJ in 1919. Fossils and fossil hunting are the focal point of the book and there is a lot of historical fact included about palaeontology and the discovery of dinosaur bones in particular.

I really enjoyed the Australian setting. How lucky were PJ and Sam to be able to stroll down to a creek at dawn and see a platypus. I am not sure how easy that would be today. I have seen them in captivity though and they are marvellous. The fossils are still being found today of course including dinosaur bones and footprints.

Not all the bones discovered in the book are fossils and there is an intriguing mystery regarding some human bones. It was not hard to guess who they must belong to but the reasons why and how they came to be there lead to a great story. It was all very enjoyable and informative.

The Fossil Hunter is my first Tea Cooper novel, but it certainly won’t be my last. What a terrific novel of historical fiction this was. It contained so many of the story elements I like best: pioneering women, natural history, and an abandoned house tainted by mystery. What a talented writer Tea Cooper is, both with character creation and her story weaving.

There were some serious underlying themes explored within both timelines and the links between both eras were solid and plausible – something I always look for in dual narrative historical fiction. References to early female pioneers of palaeontology – fossil hunters – were sprinkled throughout, offering a springboard for further reading if you were so inclined. It was just by coincidence that I recently watched the film Ammonite, a story about Mary Anning, the 19th century English palaeontologist, who is mentioned as an associate of Anthea Winstanley in The Fossil Hunter. I love it when my reading and viewing crosses over like that.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Fossil Hunter and recommend it highly to fans of Australian historical fiction.

Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.

Again MS Cooper has dug deep into research and given her readers a fabulous story set in duel timelines around The Hunter Valley, this time we discover fossils and the wonderful people who spend their lives searching for the past in some very interesting places and make such wonderful discoveries, do come along and meet the fabulous characters and enjoy their stories as much as I did.

It is 1919 and Penelope Jane (PJ) Martindale is spending some time at London’s Natural History Museum, before she travels home to Australia when she discovers a fossil found at Bow Wow Gorge in The Hunter Valley, a place she knows her young brothers would go there searching for fossils, sadly her brothers will not be coming home from France, but PJ has a bee in her bonnet now and can’t wait to get back home and do a bit of searching herself never realising what she will uncover from seventy years before.

Wollombi Hunter Valley 1847 a young Mellie Vale is about to have her life turned upside down by matters that had nothing to do with her, she is scared and very ill, but when she wakes from her fever her Pa is gone and she is living at the Doctor’s house, the Doctor’s wife sends her along to visit a friend, an amateur palaeontologilst, Anthea Winstanley with her daughters and a couple of other young girls for ten days of what should be fun and to help Mellie heal.

Mellie is soon helping Anthea to find these sea dragons and learning as she goes in the beautiful Bow Wow Gorge, she and Anthea are very close but things turn around when a stranger visits and trouble is brewing, life changes very quickly.

PJ arrives back in the Hunter Valley from the battlefields of France she hopes to talk to her father about her brothers, she is also accompanied by Sam who is American, the man who wants to marry her they drove ambulances together on the front line things don’t go as planned when she arrives home and her and Sam find themselves searching for fossils in the Bow Wow Gorge but when they find human bones the search depends and they find they are uncovering secrets from seventy years ago.

I truly loved this story it is so well written, the characters are easy to get to know and there were many twists for me as the truths come out about what had happened all those years ago at Bow Wow house and gorge. I do highly recommend this one a must read, Tea Cooper has never disappointed me with one of her stories another page turner and one for the keeper shelf.

My thanks to Harlequin AU for my copy to read and review and Netgalley.

‘It’s blood—bad blood—that’s causing it. A new pinafore and some education ain’t going to change nothing.’

Wollombi, Hunter Valley, NSW 1847 and 1919.

A fossil discovered at London’s Natural History Museum leads Penelope Jane (PJ) Martindale on a journey of discovery. PJ, who left Australia to serve as an ambulance driver in France during the Great War, returns home to her father in 1919. Her father gives her a cold welcome: he blames her for her younger brothers signing up to serve and then both losing their lives during the war. PJ, looking through some of her brothers’ possessions, finds some fossils they had found at Bow Wow Gorge, and she remembers the fossil she discovered at the Natural History Museum.

In 1847, Mellie Vale contracts chicken pox. The last thing she remembers before succumbing to fever is a monster chasing her. Mellie is taken in by Doctor Pearson and his family: returning home is not possible although Mellie is not told why for a while. The Pearson family, trying to help Mellie, send her with their two daughters and their two friends to visit their family friend Anthea Winstanley at her home near Bow Wow Gorge. Anthea is an amateur palaeontologist, and Mellie quickly becomes caught up in the search for fossils.

In 1919, PJ is keen to learn more about Bow Wow Gorge, its fossils, and its connection to Anthea Winstanley. There’s a history about Bow Wow Gorge: apparently people disappeared there 70 years ago, and locals warn people against going there. PJ and her American boyfriend Sam explore, and amongst other mysteries, they discover some bones.

‘The Fossil Hunter’ is an intriguing dual timeline story which takes the reader between the lives of Mellie in 1847 and PJ in 1919. Both time periods have their dark secrets and mysteries, and PJ is determined to find out what really happened in 1847.

I really enjoyed this novel with its focus on natural history and its shifts between the stories of Mellie and PJ. A terrific blend of secrets and mystery spread across 72 years. Another terrific novel from Ms Cooper. Highly recommended to lovers of Australian historical fiction featuring some terrific female characters.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Australia for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith