AustLit

Our new serial story, "Good Courage," the first instalment of which will appear on Tuesday next, is by Mrs. Ada Holman, and should grip the interest of readers from its very beginning.

The opening chapters give pictures of life in Ireland in the forties of last century, and through them runs a love story; and, moving on to the fifties, we get glimpses of the tremendous excitement caused there and all over the world by the news of the Australian gold discoveries. The family around whom the story centres emigrates to Victoria, and descriptions are given of Melbourne as it then was, and of Ballarat, where the family settled. The characters are well drawn, and the interest in the story, with its many romantic and humorous interludes, is so well sustained that the reader will eagerly await the fresh instalments from day to day. The story, with its vivid account of old times on the diggings, should make a strong appeal to those who like to read the stirring episodes of early days.

– The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 July 1936, p11

For the scene of her story, "Eve In the Desert," which will begin publication in our columns on Saturday next, Ada A. Holman has taken a tiny mining centre in Western Australia. The narrative is drenched in local colour. As he proceeds through it, the reader realises acutely the hardships and deprivations that the inhabitants of such places have to endure—the husbanding of water supplies, the mail service which ploughs out through the sand when it can, the limited variety of the food, the sudden sandstorms which sweep down and blot out the cheerful light of the sun. The novel is no Dostoievsky-like assemblage of gloom, however. Apart from its outward settings, it is just as true to life in its portrayal of real Australian character. The people of the story carry on in the most cheerful and good-natured spirit whatever happens to them. They count their small blessings, and make the most of them. Thus, the general tone of the book is comedy. The title is given it by a girl who arrives at Kalgi from the city, and, as the only eligible and attractive feminine influence in the place, sets all the local young men by the ears. It is an easily and pleasantly drawn study, which has a ring of naturalness about it far removed from the artificial young person one sees so often in the more conventional films. The ending is unexpected, but fits in quite logically with what has gone before.

- The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 January 1934, p. 8