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|summary=Featuring a rogues gallery of glorious characters, this complex story of death, drugs and disappearance in the New Zealand gold rush of the 1860s is one of those chunky novels that has the power to transport you to a different time. Joyful story telling and skilful handling of complex character relationships.

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Eleanor Catton's ''The Luminaries'' is set in the New Zealand gold rush of the late 1860s. It's a story about greed, power, gold, dreams, opium, secrets, betrayal and identity, but most of all, it's a celebration of the art of story telling, both in terms of Catton's book and the stories her characters have to tell. It's the kind of book that is perfect escapism and which wraps you up in its world. If you like big, chunky books that you can get lost in for hours, then this is one for you.