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It is 2003 in New Zealand, and Louisa Greenwood and her daughter Ngaroma are on a quest to discover their ancestry. Louisa has a greenstone necklace left to her in her father’s will, and from the first time Ngaroma wears it, she has unusual experiences, both good and bad. It leads her to various locations in New Zealand and England until, through a series of meetings and coincidences, she discovers the last resting place of her five times great grandmother.
One hundred and fifty years earlier, Major Joseph Greenwood, with his wife Catherine, is sent via India and England to New Zealand as a Fencible. The couple becomes established in Auckland society, and all goes well until Joseph fathers a son with Miriama Potiki, their live-in housekeeper. What follows is a series of challenges involving the Greenwoods, their friends and family, on both sides of the world, and the ramifications are felt by Louisa and Ngaroma five generations later.
Finding Miriama is about identity, chasing dreams and self-determination, set against a background of war in Afghanistan, England in the 1850s and Māori-Pākehā relations in colonial New Zealand.
In the shadows of London's Highgate Cemetery, Ngaroma stands before her great-great-grandfather's crypt, unknowingly about to unravel a tale that spans two centuries and two hemispheres.
Victorian New Zealand sets the stage for an extraordinary story of two brothers bound by blood but divided by empire. Hōhepa, born to a British captain and a Māori mother, navigates a precarious path between two worlds during a time of mounting colonial tensions. Meanwhile, in England, his half-brother Colin, a gifted landscape painter, confronts the suffocating constraints of Victorian society as he struggles to live authentically in a world that denies his true nature and desires. Their unlikely bond challenges the rigid social boundaries of their era, proving that the heart knows no borders.
Now, in 2010, Ngaroma's discovery in that London cemetery will bridge the generations, revealing how love, sacrifice, and forgiveness shaped her family's legacy across oceans and decades. Based on the author's own family history, this richly woven narrative continues the story begun in 'Finding Miriama', exploring how the choices of our ancestors echo through time.
Detective Constable Ngaroma Greenwood's connection to her past lies in an unexpected place: a lead-lined coffin in London's Highgate Cemetery. It's 2018, and as she begins her second year with the Metropolitan Police, she carries a precious greenstone pendant—a taonga passed down through generations since 1873. Her four-times great-grandfather Hōhepa, the illegitimate Māori son of Major Joseph Greenwood, first wore it.
Meanwhile, in 1889 New Zealand, Lucy Greenwood mourns the loss of her beloved Hōhepa. As she prepares to welcome a new hairdresser to her family business, she grapples with an even harder task: telling Joseph's legitimate son Colin in London about the death of the Māori half-brother he had grown to cherish.
As Ngaroma, supported by her partner Natalie, unravels the threads of her heritage, these two worlds, separated by time, begin to converge. This third instalment in the series that began with 'Finding Miriama' and 'Of Greenstone and Violins' continues to explore the enduring themes of identity and self-determination.