The Blue Lion

Graham Billing

A love story on more than one level about Albion and Charlotte who have arrived in newly colonised New Zealand. From very different backgrounds they must carve out new lives in the bustling, still raw, settlement of Dunedin in the 1860s. They perceive each other, separate, and eventually come together in the traditional way. But what gives an edge to the story is Graham Billing's passionate involvement with the landscape of Otago. His writing is sensuous, often lyrical, absorbing in its evocation of time and place. Albion, employed by the Acclimatisation Society to set up New Zealand's first salmon hatchery, must preserve the vulnerable salmon eggs brought from England by sailing ship. When he is snubbed by the gentry he must do battle too, to find himself and see what he can offer to the woman he at last discovers he loves.