Customer Reviews

Treasures on Earth

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Treasures on Earth is the story of Gaddy Patterson, a woman near forty at the book's beginning who stumbles upon a dead girl wrapped around a girl baby of about 3 or 4 months of age. Having never had her own children, Gaddy claims the child as her own, causing the man that she travels with to leave her, and causing her wandering lifestyle to come to a standstill. She must stay within the parish where she found the child by Scottish law. Gaddy begins working the land of a local farmer, Coll Cochran, and soon falls in love with him, though he is married. Coll also has fallen in love with Gaddy but does nothing to encourage it until his wife begins falling into the throes of a madness borne of jealousy. She thinks she knows what goes on between Gaddy and her husband. When she dies due to her own madness, Coll and Gaddy come together and have a child, Anna, though they never marry.

This book is about Elspeth, the foundling, and Anna who grow up together to be the ! most beautiful girls in the lowlands of late 18th century/early 19th century Scotland. It is a coming of age story that ends in a completely unexpected way, Stirling's trademark.

This is a fine book for those who treasure traveling in other countries. Stirling's description of the 18th century environment and its customs is fluid and frightfully entertaining. I loved this book, the first I had read by Stirling, and for the next year or so, I will read no others until I have read all that Jessica Stirling has written.

I read this book in 1985 and loved it, was desperate to re-read and was lucky enough to find it through Amazon. It is an amazing story and gives you an idea how hard it was not to be among the wealthy in Scotland in the early 1800's. It is not my usual type of reading material, I'm more of a mystery person in the present time period, but I loved this change of pace. The story is is brutal and tender at the same time. I have ordered the two books that are the sequels to this story from Amazon also.

Treasures On Earth - A fantastic audio book, written by Jessica Stirling,
have also purchased the other two audio books of this Saga of Gaddy Patterson, it is worth reading.