Margaret Hope - A Time for Courage

Book Review written by Maggie Perkovic and read live on the bookshow 30th April 2015
This is a very well written book which starts in the Victorian Era when we meet
a family of Mother and Father with a boy and girl and a very repressive attitude
which the father enjoys as head of the household and no time for kindness to
the mother now suffering yet another premature birth which is making her very ill.
He calls her a failure. The daughter feels stifled by his  manner, wishing to go on
to further education but he forbids it as he wishes her to marry a rich man to help
augment his money. The boy is sent to school at eight years and is beaten for
weeping as he reads a letter from his sister at school. His father wants him to be
a soldier which he hates the thought of as he despises war and all it entails.
He trains at college to study mining and goes to South Africa to search for
gold and diamonds but is shocked by the white man's treatment of the natives
and forms a bond with a black South African who saves him from certain death.
The daughter finally breaks away from her father to secure her dream of further
education, only returning to nurse her mother as she finally loses her battle for
life. After that she turns to the Female Suffrage cause which puts her in prison
for some time ruining her health, but her mother leaves her some property on
her death which leads to a new and happier existence for her.
Her brother returns to the UK as the Great War starts, and serves as an Medic
rather than as a soldier which causes his father to cut him out of his life for
being a "coward". The bullying father is then left by his children to seek their
own salvation which makes a rather unhappy ending to an excellent story.
Very good book . Well recommended. Maggie Perkovic.