SPOILERS!!!
These are the characters in this novel:
- Aroha Fitzpatrick is Linda and Fitz's daughter. She grew up without her father, but Franz was a good father figure for her. When she was fourteen, she was in love with Matiu, one of the Maori boys in the school. When they go to visit his family, the train where they are travelling had an accident, and Matiu dies as well as some Maori children who were going to study in Franz's school. Aroha starts to think that she is cursed. That idea becomes stronger when her fiancé, Koro, died in the eruption of Mount Tarawwera. Aroha is living in the area after studying foreign languages, and she becomes a tourist guide. After Koro's death, she and her friend Bao decide to run the hotel she and Koro planned to open after the wedding. Aroha finally lets herself love Bao, and at the end of the book they are about to marry, and she is pregnant.
- Robin Fenroy is Cat and Chris's son. From very young he wants to be an actor, and when he sees an advertisement requesting actors, he leaves Rata Station without telling anybody. Robin ends up in Vera Carraway's company, a mockery of theatre, but Vera keeps blackmailing him and Robin is too naive and silly to stand up to her. When Aroha makes him see that he should leave, he finally talks to Vera, and it is then that Vera tries to seduce him by undressing and getting into the lake, and the lake becomes a boiling cauldron and kills her. Robin gets acquainted with Helena Lacrosse, who swears he is the spitting image of her great aunt whose portrait hangs in her house. This proves to be true. Helena's great aunt is Cat's mother, and when Helena's grandfather dies, he leaves his house and factory to Robin. This is a surprise, and Robin tries to run the factory but he does not have the ability to do so. That is why he hires March, but March's hard conditions makes him prey of journalists. At the end of the book Robin decides to sell the factory and create his own theatre and company, and he falls for his former fellow actor's daughter, Lucille. Fitz almost kills them both, but thankfully, his family saves them from Fitz.
- March Jensch is Mara's daughter. March grows up under the influence of Jane, who is not her real grandmother. March is into finances, and when Robin inherits the hotel, he hires her as a manager, but March rules the factory despicably. To prove that the conditions are not so hard, she agrees to live the life a seamstress leads, but that proves that she needs to change conditions.
- (Ara)peta is Mara and Eru's son. He decides to stuy law to fight injustice, and he is contrary to his sister's way of running the mill. Peta falls for Leah and they want to get married.
- Linda Lange Fitzpatrick (formerly Brandman) is Cat and Ottfried's daughter.Even though she and Carol grew up as if they were twins, they know that they are half-sisters. Linda married Joseph Fitzpatrick after she and Carol lost Rata Station when Cat and Chris were thought to be dead. Linda struggled to make her marriage to succeed, but when Vera Carrigan became a fixture in her life, things went from bad to worse. She had her daughter, Aroha, and Linda left Fitz and got a divorce. She married Franz, Ida's brother, and they have run the orphanage he founded, which later became a school.
- Franz Lange is Ida's youngest brother and the only one who moved to Australia with their father.. When he grew up, he became a priest. When he moved to New Zealand, he went to see Ida's family, and she fell for Linda. When they met again years later, Linda had left Fitz. It was Franz who forced Fitz to sign a document granting Linda a divorce. Franz married Linda, and they raised Aroha together while running his school.
- Joe Fitpatrick (Fitz) is the man who Linda falls for and marries. Fitz proves to be a liar and a trickster. He doesn't take responsibilities seriously, and Linda suffered on account of him. The last sttaw was when he brought another woman into his marriage, Vera Carrigan. In this book Fitz makes his appearance, trying to find out what happened to Vera. For a while he gets a job in Aroha's hotel, but he leaves when his daughter finds out that he had been gambling,, using the hotel. Fitz is convinced that Robin killed Vera, so he goes to find him and kill him. He plans the whole thing, but thankfully, Arhoa and the others reach the theatre to stop him. Then when he tries to escape, using Lucille with threats, he is hit by a trolley and dies.
- Vera Carrigan is the woman who Fitz started seeing while still married to Linda. Vera is manipulative and cruel. Now years later Vera runs a amateur theatrical company, and Robin gets a job there. Robin realises that the company is a shame as Vera sometimes performs some preposterous versions of version and lewd scenes. Vera also robs men who she seduces, and naive Robin helps him once, and when Robin threatens to leave, she forces to stay or she will go to the police. Vera dies when she tries to seduce Robin and talk him out of leaving the company. She undresses and starts to swim in a lake, and suddenly, its water grow in temperature, and Vera is scalded to death.
- Duong Bao is the Chinese man who Aroha befriends and invites to follow her to Te Wairoa. Bao is a good friend and worker. When Koro dies, he and Aroha work together at the hotel that she and Koro planned to open together. Bao is in love with Aroha, but she keeps him at arm's length, thinking that the curse pursues her and having a relationship with him may be harful for him. However, she finally gets to understand that there is no curse, and at the end of the book they are to marry, and Aroha is expecting a baby.
- Bertram Lockhart is one of the actors employed in Vera's company. Bertram is a good actor but also a drunkard. When the company is dissolved, he makes an effort to stop drinking. Bertram meets Robin again when the younger man is volunteering in a soup kitchen. It is Bertram who makes Robin see that if he is not a good businessman, he should create his own theatrical company. Bertram also tells him about his wife who abandoned him because of the drink. When she died some time ago, he decides to stoop drinking. Bertram has a daughter, Lucille, who Robin falls for.
- Lucille Lockhart is Bertram's daughter who he gets reacquainted with when her mother dies and Bertram has left Vera's company. Lucille is also keen on theatre, and she and Robin fall in love.
- Leah Hobarth is the actress working for Vera. When Robin first meets her, he describes her as someone totally apathetic, and he later learns that Vera supplies her with laudanum. Leah claims that Vera helped her, and without her she would have ended up in a brothel. When Vera dies, Leah ends up in prison, and that helps her go clean, and a new life starts for her. She finds a job in Robin's factories and starts living with a family as a lodger. When Robin runs into her, Leah makes him see that the conditions of his workers are beyond the pale. Robin feels attracted to her for a while, but Leah turns her affection to Peta.
- Koro Hinerangi is the Maori that Aroha falls in love with. They are engaged to marry and plan to open a hotel. However, Koro dies in the erruption of Mount Tarawera.
- Cat Fenroy is Ida's best friend and the owner of Rata Station. Cat grew up in a brothel and her mother didn't care about her as she was continuously drunk. Cat escaped the brothel and the Maori adopted her. When years later the Maori asked her to leave when she helped Chris Fenroy to escape, she started working as a maid. Then she ended up as a good friend of Ida and they remained together. Cat was raped by Ida's husband, and she got pregnant and had a baby, who Ida and she agreed to say that both of their babies were twins. Cat was declared dead when the ship where he and Chris were travelling with Linda and Carol sinks, but they lived on a deserted island for two years, but two years later they were rescued. Jane was pregnant when she was rescued. Chris and Cat married and had their son, Robin.
- Christopher Fenroy is an Englishman of noble origin. As he grew up in contact with the Maori, he can speak the language, and he worked as a translator for the army, and that is how he and Cat met. Chris married Jane Beit even though there was no love between them, and Jane eventually left him for the Maori chieftain. He and Cat lived on a desert island after the ship where they were travelling sank. Thakfully, they were rescued two years later, and when he learnt what Jane did, he went after her. Then she got his divorce from Jane, and he finally married Cat.
- Helena Lacrosse is the woman who approaches Robin, certain that he must be a relative of Suzanne. Helena is eager to find a male heir for her grandfather because he doesn't want to marry her fiancée. When Robin inherits, she has the idea that he will marry him, so she is bitterly disappointed when two years later Robin decides to sell everything and won't marry him. Fitz talks her into helping her have his revenge on Robin. At the end of the book nothing can be proved against her, and she leaves for Australia.
- Walter Lacrosse was Helena's grandfather and Suzanne's brother. When he dies suddenly, he leaves most of his patrimony to Robin.
-Harold Wentworth was Helena's fiancée, but shortly after Robin inherits, he leaves her, and when Robin fires him, he finds a job with the competition.
- Carol Paxton (nee Brandman) is Ida and Ottfried's daughter. Carol was engaged to Oliver Butler, but he left her when Carol lost Rata Station during the time that Cat and Chris were thought to have died. Carol and Mara were kidnapped by HauHau warriors, and they were illtreated and tortured. Bill Paxton eventually rescued her, and they got married. They have four children and run Rata Station alongside Cat and Chris.
- Bill Paxton met Carol when they were travelling on the General Lee and the ship sank. Bill was in love with Carol, but Carol turned down his first proposal when he asked her to marry. It was him who found Cat and Chris alive on an island, and then he and Eru worked together to rescue Carol and Mara. Bill and Carol finally married, and he and Carol run Rata Station alongside Cat and Chris. He and Carol have four children.
- Jane Te Rohi (formerly Beit) used to all the paperwork for her father, who arranged for German settlers to move to New Zealand. Jane agreed to marry Chris Fenroy who she did not love, but then when she started helping the Maori chieftain, she fell for him. So she decided to divorce Chris and marry Te Haitara. They had a child together, Eru. When Chris and Cat were declared dead, she came forward as Chris's heir as they were still married legally. Actually, in his birth certificate Chris was named as Eru's father. When Eru found out that his mother had evicted Mara, Linda and Carol, he went to join the Hau Hau warriors. When Chris turned up alive, Jane was the butt of all her fury. Jane and Te Haitara make up when they got together when Eru is arrested and accused of murder. Jane becomes a great influence for March in the way she was into finance and economy.
- Te Haitara is the chieftain who Jane falls for and eventually marries.
- Mara Jensh is Ida and Karl's daughter. She has always been in love with Eru, Jane's son, but before they could get married, the couple went through a lot. Mara was kidnapped by a HauHau warrior who tortured and raped her. It was Eru who rescued, but for months she couldn't come closer to him because he reminded her of what she had gone through. Mara got pregnant by her kidnapper, but when she and Eru married, they raised the girl, March, as their own. They also had a boy.
-Te Eriatara, Eru is Jane and Te Haitara's son. He grew up alongside Mara, and they have always been in love. Eru had a rebellious stage when his mother evicted Mara from Rata Station, and he joined the HauHau movement. He realised that he had made a mistake when he witnessed some of the atrocities the HauHau warriors did. Eru rescued Mara from her kidnapper, but the girl was a mess and did not want to be near him. Then Eru was accused of murder, and Mara realised how much he loved her and she decided to testify and even lied for him. Eru and Mara married, and Eru raised March as his own, and they also had a son.
- Martin Porter is the expert on economy that Jane hires to tutor March. Martin and March leave together to live together, and they run a woollen mill together. Then Martin leaves March to marry an heiress, and March finds herself without a job. When Robin decides to hire her to manage his factory, March is doubly happy because their direct competitor is Martin.
- Lani is the baby that Bao saves in the eruption of the volcano, and Aroha decides to raise her as her daughter when her parents die.
- Dorothy and Irene Paxton are Carol and Bill's daughters.
- Henry and Tony Paxton are Carol and Bill's sons.
- Emily and Sally Smith are the young girls who Leah share the bed in the family she is boarding with.
- Reverend Burton appears in another trilogy, and he helps Robin understand what she has to do with his businesses.
- Kathleen Burton is Reverend Burton's wife. She owns a clothes shop with her partner Claire.
- Matiu is the young Maori boy who Aroha loved. He died in a train accident when he and Aroha were returning home after a visit to his Maori family.
- Hakopa is Matiu's uncle
- Reka is Matiu's aunt.
- Nagaio is Matiu's grandmother.
- Haki, Anaru, Koria and Purahi were the four children that were going to study in Franz's school, but the train accident thwarted that. Haki and Purahi died.
- Aputa was Haki's mum, and when her young daugher dies, she curses Aroha.
- Sophia Hinerangi is Koro's mother and a guide in the area with Katae Middlemas.
- Hori Taiawi is Sophia's husband and Koro's stepfather.
- Kate Middlemas is a guide in Te Wairoa
- Joseph McRae owns a hotel near Te Wairoa and Bao starts working for him when he first arrives.
- Tuhoto is a priest who is not happy about the influx of tourists in the area.
- Mr Todd is the office manager in Robin's factory.
- Karl Jensch emigrated to New Zealand from Germany. Karl is intelligent and resourceful. Karl left school young to earn money for his family, but he lost his family shortly afterwards. Karl was successful in New Zealand because he had bothered learning English, and one of the surveyors hired him. Karl had always been love with Ida, but she refused to marry him because she felt she had to obey her father and marry Ottfried. When Ottfried died, Karl and Ida married, and they have a daughter in common, Mara. They decided to move to the North Island years ago.
- Ida Jensch (formerly Lange Brandmann) emigrated to New Zealand with her father and siblings. She was engaged to Ottfriend Brandmann, but her love has always been Karl. Ida became pregnant almost at the same time as Cat, who was raped by Ottfried. They decided that they would say that their children areweretwins. They gave birth to two daughters, Carol and Linda. It is Ida who shot Ottfried dead. Ida and Karl married eventually and have a daughter, Mara.
- Henrietta Vandermere was the tutor who was hired to teach the children at the station.
- Suzanne was Cat's mother. She was a prostitute and a drunkard, who was so out of it that she did not bother to give her daughter a name. When Cat meets her uncle, she discovers that Suzanne got pregnant and her father threw her out. After that, she was never heard of,, and Cat imagine that the man who got her pregnant abandoned her.
- William Deans is a sheep breader in the area.
- John Deans is William's brother.
- Emma and Alison Deans are William's and John's wives.
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