Natural history of love. Caroline Petit. 2022.

When Melbourne lawyer Nathan Smithson takes on the case of mad, wealthy Edward Fonceca’s inheritance trial against his ruthless brother in 1901, he must unearth long-buried family secrets to have any chance of winning.

Brazil, 1852: Francois, the Count de Castelnau and French consul to Bahia, falls dangerously I’ll on a naturalist expedition and is delivered by Tupismto the Fonceca household. Carolina Fonceca is sixteen years old and longing to leave the confines of her family’s remote Brazilian sugar plantation. With a head full of Balzac and dreams of Parisian life, she is instantly beguiled by the middle aged Frenchman. What Caroline doesn’t know is that Francois has a wife and son back in France. Desperate for a new life, she makes a decision that will haunt her forever.