Non-Fiction Review: Christchurch Ruptures by Katie Pickles

Christchurch Ruptures had some interesting content, but if I'd had to read the words 'rupture', 'ruptures', 'rupturing' or 'ruptured' one more time, I'd be writing to you from a hospital bed after a ruptured brain aneurysm. 

I suppose it's good Pickles kept relating everything back to her thesis, but I wish she'd been able to do so without such constant and overt reiteration of one word. To give you a taste, here's an excerpt from a page-and-a-half of text in the conclusion: 

The ruptures identified in this book indicate how the city might regroup and move on. Chapter 1, with its discussion of ruptured landscapes, warns of being ideologically trapped in the past. [2 sentences excluded]. The rupturing of Christchurch has shown that being open to continual change is the best way forward.  

The discussion of ruptured peoples and heritage in Chapter 2 suggests that respect for all peoples, regardless of race or ethnicity, and regardless of length of residency in the city, is the way to proceed. [5 sentences excluded]. 

Chapter 3 indicates the possibility of learning from the strengths of the past. The Canterbury earthquakes have ruptured 'the People's Republic of Christchurch', bringing that radical heritage into question. [3 sentences excluded].

Chapter 4 reveals that conformity and opposition to diversity is unproductive. Post-quake Christchurch has the chance to rise from a ruptured Gothic identity as a creative and inclusive place. (p. 169-170)

It goes on, but you get the picture. Now that I've got that out of my system, I can talk about the book itself. 

As you may be able to tell from the tagline, it's more focused on the history of Christchurch and how this has determined post-quake responses, rather than post-quake Christchurch itself. I didn't know that much about the history of Christchurch - apart from the whole pilgrim thing - so I found this to be valuable. I also found a lot of value in the way the town's history was framed in terms of tension and coexistence between social conservatism (originating in the 'God's own Paradise' attitude of the first Anglican settlers) and radicalism (expressed in the many social movements and prominent reformers centred in Christchurch, including Kate Shepherd and Norman Kirk). However, this did lead to many intriguing local personalities and movements being brought up and dismissed in short order, and these sometimes read like a laundry list. 

In fact, overall - and even excluding the whole 'rupture' thing - Pickle's writing could have been more engaging. Nonetheless, it was straight-forward and accessible, which is far preferable to over-intellectualism. 

Another reason I appreciated the historical focus is that I was already familiar with what is discussed when the focus did switch to the post-quake environment, particularly the debate surrounding the fate of the Cathedral, and I suspect many New Zealanders will find the same. But we do tend to have selective memory when it comes to Christchurch, invoking the 'Kia Kaha' spirit when convenient, and just as conveniently forgetting that their struggle is ongoing the rest of the time. Pickle highlights that this struggle isn't only related to the physical environment, but it also discursive in nature: how do Cantabrians re-constitute a city with a contested but highly mythologised history, and where different experiences have lead to a proliferation of opinions over what 're-building' looks like. It's a question that resonates much further than New Zealand, and touches deeply on identity. 

Pickle does draw some conclusions, as you can see from what I quoted above, but they're haphazardly thrown in right at the close of each chapter, and then at the end of the book, and they were cursory. Sometimes it also seemed as though they were only tangentially related to what she had been talking about. I'm sure that they were extremely relevant, but I think that the historical focus (with the exception of Chapter 5) and the short length of the concluding paragraphs meant that what she regarded as the modern-day implications or lessons to be learnt weren't drawn out quite as explicitly as I would have liked. 

This book has left me with two conclusions. The first is that if look at the word 'rupture' too much, it looks as if it's spelled wrong. The second, more charitable one comes from reading both Christchurch Ruptures and the excellent The First Migration: Maori Origins 3000BC - AD 1450 and is that BWB Texts, the imprint who published these books, is an invaluable resource for anyone looking to educate themselves on New Zealand's past, present and future without breaking the bank. Their titles cover a wide range of interesting topics, spanning history, anthropology, economics, sociology, medicine and science, as well as memoir and many of the authors are well-known New Zealand academics and personalities, including Michael King, Atholl Anderson and Claudia Orange. I only wish that Australia had something similar (the closest thing I can think of is the Quarterly Essay), but I'm going back to New Zealand at Christmas so I'll stock up on more BWBs then. 

Review: Chocolate Cake for Breakfast by Danielle Hawkins

5 stars
*SPOILER ALERT*

My original review for this book got lost in the digital ether somewhere between Auckland and Sydney, so excuse me if this one suffers from rewrite-itis. As we all know, once a piece of writing is lost it becomes the most inspired, crucial thing since the Magna Carta, never able to matched no matter how you toil over it. Not that I'm being dramatic or anything.

Anyway, Chocolate Cake for Breakfast by Danielle Hawkins features quirky rural vet Helen McNeil. One night, escaping someone at a party, she runs into a guy called Mark and they make small talk. Only later does she realise that Mark is actually Mark Tipene, All Black and shirtless poster on the work tearoom wall. He could have any woman in New Zealand (as everyone keeps reminding Helen), but for some reason he stops by Helen's clinic and asks her out. Nor is he deterred by her on-call roster (formidable during calving season) and discussions of bovine uterine prolapse. But he's based in Auckland, and she's in the Waikato, and then something happens that throws their burgeoning relationship right off it's planned course. 

I felt like Chocolate Cake for Breakfast sat midway on the spectrum that ranges from chick-lit to contemporary romance. It was written completely from the heroine's point of view, the love scenes were closed-door, and the romantic arc saw the hero and heroine in a stable relationship for much of the book; all characteristics that I would associate more with chick-lit or 'sweet' contemporaries. 

However, in other ways, it did feel very much like a contemporary, but I'm not going to list those ways because I  promptly forgot most of them after writing them in the original review. The distinction between chick-lit and contemporary is extremely arbitrary, but I feel the to situate Chocolate Cake for Breakfast with reference to them because it felt...different than the majority of both. Somehow, the sense of fulfilment I got from reading it reminded me of those first dozen romance novels I devoured, which made me feel so gooey inside and and which still hold a special place in my heart, even if, rationally, I know that there might be nothing incredibly exceptional about them. 

I read Chocolate Cake for Breakfast in a day, driven by my love for the quirky Helen and her poignant but still comic struggle with coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy. Her internal disquiet and insecurities surrounding her relationship with Mark and their impending parenthood were so raw and touching, and I think the lack of sugar-coating was one of the things that made the book feel so different and special. 

Helen can't understand what Mark sees in her, and feels sure that the pregnancy means that he'll stick with her just out of obligation. They develop massive communication issues that stem from the fact that they are very different people, who, because they have only been in a relationship a short time, don't understand each others' needs that well. Because the book is written from Helen's perspective, I've focused a lot more on her, but Mark was a great hero, a classic old-school Kiwi bloke with just enough new-age sensitivity thrown in. 

The fact that he's an All Black opens the field for comparisons with other rugby romances, particularly Rosalind James' well known Escape to New Zealand series. As much as I did like those, Chocoloate Cake for Breakfast feels far more organic, with New Zealand and the All Blacks undergoing far less fetishisation. This is much more made for an internal Kiwi audience, rather than people for whom New Zealand and rugby are exciting and exotic. 

Instead of having one of New Zealand's major draw-cards as a setting, here we have a fictional rural Waikato town, and the representation was both incredibly comic and spot-on. There's grumpy dairy farmers, the local pub, trips to 'big smoke' Hamilton and cousins who spot each others' cars in the local supermarket car park. 

I'm sure the way this book portrayed the familiar rhythms of life in the Waikato has impacted my rating, because it's impossible for me to separate my experience of Chocolate Cake for Breakfast with my near-constant sense of...not homesickness, exactly, but of nostalgia, longing and belonging. As a result, I've debated with myself a lot over whether I'm being rational giving this book 5 stars, especially since I 5-starred The Hating Game so recently. But, at the end of the day, when something is a 5 star book for someone, it's a 5 star book.

Review: Fearless by Nicola Claire

2.5 stars

For the most part, I didn't connect with Fearless by Nicola Claire, and I think the Gothic element had a lot to do with that. Fearless trades in the suspense of old-school Gothics, but I've never been someone who liked or was drawn in by that atmosphere of generalised fear. In fact, it's because I dislike being scared, upset or uncertain that I read romance. So when Fearless was described as the first in a "Gothic romance series [that] introduces a dark and sinister early settler New Zealand", I knew it was a risk. I took it anyway, because a) New Zealand setting and b) suffragette heroine. In the end, my relationship with it turned out pretty much as you'd expect.

The set up is that there's a Jack the Ripper copy-cat killing Suffragettes in Auckland in 1891. Anna Cassidy was trained as a surgeon by her father, who was the Chief Surgeon of the Auckland Police. However now that her father's dead, the Police Force won't have anything to do with a informally trained female doctor, even when the victims are her friends and fellow suffragettes. Inspector Andrew Kelly is investigating the deaths, and is finding it hard to turn down Anna's involvement, especially since the actual new Surgeon General is a drunkard. It also becomes increasingly obvious that, whoever the killer is, he has some kind of twisted obsession with Anna, so Kelly needs to keep her close. 

For me, the Gothic-ness made it feel very long and drawn out, because there's that slow build up of tension. I started off reading the descriptions of horribly mutilated bodies, but I ended up mainly skipping over them for my own peace of mind, which probably further reduced my ability to buy into the suspense and my investment in the characters finding the killers. But, really, there's only so much a girl can take. However, I did find the medical aspect quite interesting: the autopsy and crime scene stuff (where I read it), the use of opiates with other drugs, the movement of medical knowledge from Britain to the colonies. 

I rather liked Anna as a heroine, but I also didn't feel like she progressed very much, because the same character traits are brought home to the reader time and time again: she's fearless, clever, medically detached and strong. I didn't find it implausible that she was medically trained, but I was unsure about the way she laid claim to the title 'Dr.' and her faith that the Surgeon General position should be hers. This seems like a big step up from wanting the vote or wanting to be accepted a doctor in general; New Zealand's first female medical student, Emily Siedeberg, who began her studies in 1890, the year before the book is set, and graduated in 1896, mainly treated women and children, because this was what was acceptable. Her friend and fellow student, Margaret Cruikshank, the first woman to formally qualify and register as a doctor in New Zealand, did treat the whole community in Waimate, but only after her male colleague left to fight in WWI, and also attended to domestic tasks on house calls, such as cooking, feeding children and milking animals. So far as I know, neither ever held any position of authority, let alone one of the highest in the land.

It annoyed me that Inspector Kelly was so paternalistic to Anna, even as he recognises her strength of character and medical capabilities. To be honest, that's probably quite realistic, I just wish it had been more offset with other endearing traits. Instead, it was all 'Anna, be more ladylike', 'stay at home and knit something' and 'I'm cold and distant to you for your own good'. 

On that last note, potential readers should also be aware that this is a series, like a we're-going-to-be-following-these-same-characters-for-multiple-books series, because that sure shocked the hell out of me in the final pages. I just thought that Inspector Kelly was super belated getting his ass into gear, but there's no HFN/HEA here. So I read 355 bleeding pages of death and dreariness, thinking that at least there would be some happiness and romance at the end and then I didn't even get that. Some warning would have have been nice. 

Anyway, I've been slightly more lenient in my assessment of Kelly and Anna's relationship now that I know it wasn't meant to be a full romance arc, but at the same time, I still feel like there should have been more of a connection between the characters. The book opens with them already knowing and pining for each other (so there's not really any forward movement there, since they're still pining at the end), and while I felt like I had enough understanding into Kelly's attraction to and love for Anna, I didn't have the same insight into why she felt the same about him. 

The Auckland setting was primarily why I chose to read this book, and while that was the aspect of it I enjoyed the most, I still feel like it didn't reach its full potential. There was of course mentions of familiar places - Grey Street, Constitution Hill - and vague mentions of historical events - 'trouble in Northland' - but overall I still wasn't massively impressed. The suffragette angle was interesting and geographically and temporally linked it to late-1800s New Zealand, since we were the first to seriously campaign for and win the the vote, but apart from that, Fearless could have easily taken place in London. The author aimed for it to be "Whitechapel meets early settler New Zealand", but its dark vibe and mean streets push it towards Whitechapel and prevent it from developing Auckland as a growing colonial town. Maybe I normally wouldn't have noticed this or felt its absence so much, except that I recently read such strong portrayal of colonial Sydney in Jasper and the Dead. 

This was primarily a case of me not gelling with a book, but I also do feel like the lack of romance arc and the unadvertised lack of a HEA will be a potential stumbling block for a lot of other romance readers. 

Review: Cursed Love by Catherine Mede

1 star

EDIT: I originally gave this 2 stars because I was trying not to be overly harsh, but bad representation is bad representation, and it was wrong of me to sugarcoat that to make myself more comfortable.

Going in, I wasn't sure where Cursed Love sat on scale from contemporary-with-mystic-elements to full-blown paranormal, given that there was only the vaguest mention of the paranormal in the blurb, but it's subtitled Aotearoa Paranormal Romance. To be honest, I still don't know how to characterise it, except to say that I wasn't a fan. 

The book opens in colonial New Zealand with the heroine's Pakeha ancestress, Esther, getting cursed by a Maori tohunga wahine for 'stealing' her man, so that henceforth her line will only breed females, and will never be able to hold onto love. When Esther asks her Maori husband what the hell just happened, he avoids answering by having sex with her. So, within the first few pages, we have the stereotype of the morally deficient and sexually dangerous 'Native' man, not the mention the exoticised spiritualism of the curse (which only gets worse as the book goes one, and gets weirdly mixed with Christian theology somewhere down the line). 

Anyway, forward to the present day. Jinny Richards has spent the last 18 years mourning her partner and unborn son as she built herself up from abandoned narcotic addict to successful insurance assessor. Now her company has parachuted Ethan Montgomery into town and they're meant to work together on a case of goods stolen from a company, run by her dead partner's brother. There's more there than meets the eye, and Jinny's growing feelings for Ethan has the potential to bring the curse down on them both. 

For the first third of the book, Ethan is a bit of a dick, and fully takes over the case that Jinny's meant to be leading. Then, the insta-love happens and his dickishness abates, leaving...nothing. Jinny's characterisation is slightly stronger. I liked her back story and her strength in the first half, but she too deteriorates, becoming weak and idiotic in the service of a overblown and convoluted plot. 

Jinny is one-sixteenth Maori, by my calculations, thanks to the Maori great-great-grandfather who brought about the curse. At one point, out of nowhere and vis-a-vis nothing, she proclaims:

"...yes, I can claim certain Maori rights, but I leave that for those less fortunate than myself."

Ethan praises her for her generosity, but the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. As much as it's extremely problematic to start making calls on who is or isn't part of a particular ethnic group, Jinny is never shown to have any connection to Maoritanga (Maori culture and tradition), to an iwi (tribe), hapu (subtribe) or whanau (extended family), although I suppose, if her ancestors also from modern-day Nelson, then her iwi would be Ngai Tahu. All she has is a pounamu necklace that holds that stupid curse. Nor is she subject to any of the discrimination or racism that comes with being identifiably Maori. Basically, her statement is the Kiwi version of "my great-great grandmother was a Cherokee princess". Many fifth or sixth generation Pakeha New Zealanders have at least one Maori ancestor, usually a foremother, since there were not many Pakeha women in the days of the early colony. (It's odd - but I suppose not beyond belief - that Jinny's Pakeha great-great grandmother married a Maori man, given that there would have been many Pakeha men looking for wives, and - as always seems to be the way - intermarriage between white women and men of other races is far more frowned on than the reverse). 

Overall, I don't have much else positive to say about this book. I did like the New Zealand setting, but feel that this cannot be separated from the problematic representation. If it hadn't been for the setting, I might have given up, but, in the end, I'm just too greedy for Antipodean romances. 

Opinion/Reflection: Australia's Erasure of Its Indigenous History

Australia's having another flash-in-the-pan moment where it has the choice to face up to its institutionalised erasure of Indigenous Australians in our history, or keep its head in the sand. Unsurprisingly, we've chosen the latter.

This time, the spark was a Daily Terror article manufacturing outrage over the fact that UNSW encourages the use of the word 'invasion' over 'discovery' when talking about British occupation. The whole thing has gone down much the same way it always does, and I don't have anything to say about it that an Indigenous voice hasn't said better; Luke Pearson's What Was 200 Years Ago? is particularly powerful.

However, something else that has caught my eye this week, as we've been dealing with this, is two remarkably similar stories of Indigenous archaeological finds on government building sites. One is in Sydney, where I live, and the other in New Zealand's Waikato region, where my family are from.

While building Sydney's much-anticipated lightrail, workers and heritage experts have uncovered a site with 22,000 Aboriginal artefacts, and the Sydney Morning Herald reported that an Indigenous heritage group is having to apply for an urgent stop work order. Transport for NSW claimed that the archaeological site was less than one percent of the whole site, and that workers could still work around it, but representatives from the heritage group said that the cache was the most easily identifiable part of a larger site, and that the whole area needed to be surveyed. The finds have significance for our understanding of inter-tribal trade and interaction, and according to an elder in the ABC article cited below, half of the site has already been destroyed. Transport's NSW statement is as follows:

All work that has occurred on the site since the artefacts were found has been in consultation with all Aboriginal groups...Transport for NSW and ALTRAC Light Rail are investigating, in conjunction with the Aboriginal representatives, opportunities to recognise the items found on site, for example in displays or education programs. The social value of the site to the local Aboriginal community is very high and we are continuing to work with [the Aboriginal groups] to identify the artefacts and how they came to be found in Randwick. - ABC News, Indigenous atrefacts found at Sydney light rail construction site, calls to halt work

Compare that response with what happened when a pre-European skull was found while digging a culvert for the New Zealand's new Waikato expressway. For a start, a stop work order was given immediately, and workers were transferred to sites up and down the expressway, away from the site. The press release from the New Zealand Transport Agency describes their process, and I've added some annotations for non-New Zealanders:

The Transport Agency's Hamilton highway manager Kaye Clark said project protocols which the NZ Transport Agency has developed alongside Waikato-Tainui immediately came into play when the remains were uncovered.   

“Our protocols include provisions for kaitiaki (guardian) from iwi [tribes] to work on site, as needed, to monitor earthworks as they unfold. This discovery was made by the kaitiaki and the project archaeologists working alongside each other, which is exactly what should happen,” Mrs Clark says.

The area was blessed by Waikato-Tainui [the local tribe] this morning (March 30) and work has stopped in that area while archaeologists remove the remains and carry out investigations in the surrounding area. 

Mrs Clark says where possible the Transport Agency worked hard to align new highways away from any sites of significance. 

“Working with iwi and the local communities we try to identify all areas of significance before we embark on our projects. Where that is not possible archaeological investigations are undertaken at the start of any project to collect and record any history so we can make it available for all New Zealanders,” Mrs Clark says. 

“In situations like this, we also have protocols we have developed alongside iwi to ensure correct cultural processes are followed.” 

Waikato Tainui, Te Arataura Chairman Rahui Papa said the co-designed process which led to the protocols being developed makes for an easier transition to ensure the correct cultural practice is engaged. 

“The NZ Transport Agency and Waikato-Tainui will continue to work in partnership to satisfy cultural values and to complete the journey that we embarked on together,” Mr Papa says. 

Once the koiwi has been removed, examined and the site investigation are complete the koiwi [remains] will be reinterred at Taupiri Urupa by kaumatua [elders].

Are you seeing a difference? Because I certainly am. One's on the defensive, and one's proactive. Also, one's a statement that was only made after the media picked up on the issue, and the other was a standard press release created to any inform interested parties about what had occurred. That's not to say that New Zealand is some kind of utopia - they still have the same legacy as any other settler society - but when it comes to tangibly respecting their Indigenous heritage, they're light years ahead of Australia.

You can be assured there are no public servants in NSW making statements about working hard "to align new highways away from any sites of significance". We don't even recognise that Indigenous Australians have sites of significance.

In 2014, there was a backlash when then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott said that the British arrived to "nothing but bush", but essentially our society functions on this premise. It's why there's mass outrage when we're told that 'discovery' is not an acceptable term, why Indigenous heritage groups have to campaign for something that should be automatic. In another depressing incident from the last week, it's why Tony Abbott was able to publish a Quarterly essay in which one of the opening lines was "we [Australia] lack a colonial past to complicate the present", and nobody really batted an eyelid. 

Recommendations: Suffragette Romances

Today, it is 122 years to the day since the women of New Zealand walked into to polling stations to place their vote in a parliamentary election. This might seem like a very small anniversary, but it was the first time any self-governing nation had allowed women to vote. The next day, Elizabeth Yates became the first female in the British Empire to be invested as a mayor. 

Today, the New Zealand's suffragette movement is immortalised in the wonderful pedestrian lights of downtown Wellington, which feature the outline of a woman in late Victorian dress. Similarly, prominent suffragette Kate Sheppard is depicted on New Zealand's ten dollar notes. 

Source: New Zealand Parliment

But there is another element to the story of New Zealand's fight for suffrage: thanks to the work of lesser-known Maori suffragettes like Meri Te Tai Mangakahia, Pakeha (white) and Maori women received suffrage simultaneously. To put this in perspective, New Zealand's neighbour, Australia, did not relent and give Aboriginal Australians - male or female - the vote until the mid 1960s,.

To commemorate this turning point in world history, the day it was definitively proven that the sky would not fall in if women voted, I give you some of my favourite romances featuring suffragettes.

The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan
If you haven't read this yet, then I seriously question your life choices. Set in the late Victorian era, it's about Frederica 'Free' Marshall, who runs a suffragette newspaper and is facing off against mounting opposition. She's also a key part of the hero's revenge plan. The hero, Edward, is the ultimate swoon-worthy beta hero, and the two share some of the best dialogue ever written. 

My Dearest Enemy by Connie Brockway

A sweet and fun romance featuring that old trope, the will with the unfair clause. Avery Thorne's uncle has stopped him from inheriting the small property he was expecting, instead leaving it to one Miss Lillian Bede. Avery will only inherit if the determined women's rights activist cannot make the property turn a profit within five years. But since a woman couldn't possibly be successful at managing a property, all Avery has to do is whittle away five years. Except that no matter where he travels, Miss Bede's letters find him, and he can't quite bring himself to hate her. 

The Likelihood of Lucy by Jenny Holiday

When Lucy Greenleaf's employer finds out she's been teaching his daughters about that unnatural woman, Mary Wollstonecraft, she's turned out without a reference. Desperate, she turns to her childhood friend Trevor Bailey. Trevor's fought tooth and nail to leave behind his destitute childhood in the rookery, and he's about to cement his position in London society by opening a fashionable hotel. He wants to help Lucy, but he can't have radical women's groups taking place in his hotel! The Likelihood of Lucy's emphasis on the theoretical basis of the suffragette movement is different to the way most authors approach it, and Trevor and Lucy's battles for supremacy are super hot. 

The Firebrand by Susan Wiggs

*Sigh* It's another woman who just wants to run her business in peace but can't because the misogynists feel threatened. During the Great Fire of Chicago, Lucy Hathaway caught a baby someone threw from the window of a burning building. For the last five years, she's raised the girl as her daughter. She meets financier Rand Higgins because she needs a loan for her ladies' bookshop, but quickly realises that he is the child's father, who believes that his daughter perished in the fire. They have to reach an agreement regarding custody, but Rand's position at the bank means he can't be seen to have anything to do with those pesky suffragettes, and Lucy's not about to give up her cause, especially not when she's being pressured to do so by powerful me. The Firebrand suffers a little from precocious child syndrome, but other than that it's a sweet story. 

A Summer for Scandal by Lydia San Andres

Emilia Cruz is a thoroughly modern woman; member of the Women's Suffrage Alliance and writer of salacious stories under a pseudonym. When visiting author Ruben Torres disparages the work of one 'Miss Del Valle', Emilia can't help but defend her work, and Ruben can't help but respond to her passion. The setting of the Caribbean in 1911 and the debate surrounding romance literature and its relationship to feminism makes A Summer for Scandal a stand-out. This was a last-minute addition to this list, since I only finished it last night, but I expect a full review will follow.

Review: Fierce by Rosalind James

2 stars

I hate writing entirely negative reviews and I don't think they are very useful to the reader, so I always try to bring some relativity to it.  I whinge away and then say 'but this was a redeeming feature' or 'if you are not bothered by xyz, then you might like this book more than me', but I've tried to do this for Fierce by Rosalind James and I can't. I've sat here staring at my blank screen for twenty minutes and I can't think of a single redeeming feature, and I can't think of a single person who might enjoy it, but clearly many people did because there are a lot of positive reviews online. To each their own, but, for me, Fierce was interminable and prompted some serious WTF moments.  

The first came from the power imbalance. This happens in a lot of romance novels, of course, and there's nothing wrong with it, but it needs to done carefully so it doesn't seem coercive. Set in New York, Fierce is a romance about a Kiwi business tycoon, Hemi, and his employee, Hope. Throughout the novel, Hope is continually concerned that Hemi will fire her, and frequently laments her lack of other employment options. When she mentioned this to him, he claims he'd never fire her, but I'm not sure how Hope was meant to know that, given Hemi is manipulative, overbearing, ruthless and doesn't take well to being told 'No'. 

As an added gripe, this was often attributed to and excused by Hemi's Maori ethnicity. At one point, he fantasises about hauling Hope away, and then says: 

"I couldn't do any of it, because this wasn't the New Zealand bush, it wasn't three hundred years ago, and she wasn't mine."  

Gah with the noble savage stuff. Also - and there's a spoiler here, because I really can't be stuffed to talk in circles - this book really reinforced the fact that the American healthcare system is completely nonsensical. Hemi 'proves himself' by paying the medical expenses for Hope's sister, Karen, in a move that finally convinces Hope that she shouldn't do a runner (even though she totally should). That plot device wouldn't have worked in Australia (or New Zealand), because the conversation - in a worst case scenario - literally would have gone like this:

Hope: My sister's throwing up constantly and I think she needs to go to the GP but I can't afford the fees so do you know one who bulk-bills?
Hemi: Yeah, there's a practice of them down the road.
Hope: Cool, thanks.

*after seeing GP*
Hope: So, turns out Karen has a brain tumour *sob*
Hemi: I'm sorry to hear that, Hope.  
Hope: Yeah, it's pretty bad. The GP gave us a referral to a Neurologist, but she only works in the public system once a month and is quite popular, so we are going have to wait maybe three to six months to get in *sob*.
Hemi: If you like, I'll pay for you to go to see the Neuro in her private rooms. It's usually about $220 dollars for an initial consultation, and you'll get $75 rebate back from medicare afterwards.
Hope: I'll give you the Medicare cheque and pay you back the rest next payday. K, thanks, bye. 
Hemi: Damn you, Medicare Benefit Schedule, you just ruined by chance to coerce this woman into a relationship!

Or Hope just would have taken Karen to Emergency one time when she had a bad episode and then it wouldn't have been classed as elective surgery and they wouldn't have had to wait at all. I understand, if you are working or lower-middle class in the U.S., the healthcare system is nothing to laugh about, but it's very hard to keep patience with a book that uses this plight so mercilessly. I've come across the plot device before and it hasn't bugged me as much, but as a New Zealander who had more money than he knew what to do with, Hemi should have:

a) paid his staff a living wage.
b) made sure their health insurance was sound and kicked in ASAP (Admittedly, I'm not sure about this. Is it legislated that you have to be in a job a certain amount of time before you can access healthcare or is it just convention?).
c) helped Hope and Karen out of the goodness of his heart.

It's getting 2 stars because it got slightly less awful in the closing chapter, when Hemi magically gained some humanity. I think I'll have to go back and read her NZ-set books with Maori heroes now, to see if she pulled the same fetishising bullshit there, and it passed me by.