The Cartographer's Secret

 The Cartographer's Secret by Tea Cooper, 385 pages.

In 1880 Evie Ludgrove inherited her father's obsession for lost Australian explorer Ludwig Leichhardt. She is a talented artist and cartographer, and is determined to find evidence of Leichhardt's last days to prove herself to her father and help him write the book he's been dreaming of. Thirty years later, Letitia Rawlings goes to visit her Great-Aunt Olivia in their ancestral home at Yellow Rock, the same home that her Aunt Evie lived in before she disappeared, although Lettie know nothing about her when she arrives to deliver news of a death in the family. Deep in mourning for her beloved brother, Lettie takes any opportunity to escape the grief around every corner in Sydney, and so instead finds herself pulled into the mystery of what happened to Evie all those years ago. But as Lettie finds herself retracing Evie's steps, she can't help but wonder if it would have been better to let the past lie.

This book had a pretty cool premise that I found executed in a pretty mediocre way. The pace was very slow, and it seemed more interested in the idea of it's own mysteriousness than the mystery itself. There was a romance that made no particular impression on me and an implied reincarnation that was frankly baffling in an otherwise very grounded historical fiction novel. It wasn't a terrible book, but I don't know that I'll be recommending it either.