This was a great story. I loved how the first half was set at sea. It was certainly really interesting and had some great detail. I have rated this book 3.5 stars rounded up. The first half of the book was certainly a 4-star read. I lost a little interest during the second half, which was more like a 3 star, so I have average it out. I like the variety of characters the author created. It certainly kept me entertained. It was a nice change to read about the fictional voyage to Australia on a prisoner ship. You can imagine all the problems that arose. 

Many thanks to the author for creating this interesting story.

The above review has already been placed on goodreads, waterstones, Google books, Barnes&noble, kobo, amazon UK where found and my blog https://ladyreading365.wixsite.com/website/post/the-good-harvest-by-j-paige-staley-booksgosocial-independent-author-3-5-stars and my new blog https://ladyreading365.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-good-harvest-by-j-paige-staley.html under my name ladyreading365

The book started a little slow but I soon found myself deeply immersed in this story. A fictional account of the ships that took convicts from England to Australia and other islands in that area. You get an insight into the sailing conditions and how people survived in this new setting. Harold starts life as a ships cabin boy and ends up purchasing an island to settle and raise a family with friends. He does well and has troubles along the way. A good tale of adventure, friendship and romance. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

i definitely questioned “What would you do if you were thrown ashore on an uninhabited island" and I appreciated the novel imagining it. I enjoyed getting to know Harold and Hannah. I really couldn't stop once I started it was really well done.

This is a well written great read. I had a hard time putting it down. I've never quite gotten into the history of that side of the world, so this was very interesting and why I first picked it up. I've very glad I did. The bit of dialect in it added flavor and didn't distract from the story at all. That was handled very well. The tale of a determined man and equally determined woman was a joy to read. Kudos to the the author.

I just finished The Good Harvest, a book about the settlement of an island off the New Zealand coast. The book taught me many things about seafaring in the early 1800s as well as a number of skills employed in trades and crafts, almost sufficiently detailed to try myself. Life in the navy, merchant shipping and as a shipwrecked settler was hard, and is well illustrated in this story. Although the last four or five chapters became more lively, and even somewhat humorous in some instances, much of the book appeared a bit dry and tedious to me. I missed character development, especially that of the courageous protagonist Harold, and also his wife Hannah, so that I did not feel any real connection with them.
This book will appeal to readers interested in early settlers and the ingenuity necessary for survival.
My thanks go to NetGalley and the publishers for this eARC.

Harold is serving on the ship “The Good Harvest” which is transporting prisoners to Australia when an outbreak of ship fever takes the lives of many of the convicts and crew. Having dealt with the disease, the vessel is then shipwrecked on an island near New Zealand.
The survivors form an uneasy alliance which leads to Harold freeing the convicts and eventually buying the island from the Maori and marrying one of the female prisoners, Hannah. Together they build a lasting community.
This was a solid story, not a classic but competently told. The often unpleasant life aboard ship is vividly depicted and the relationship between Harold and Hannah is interesting and often funny. The author warns in his preface that the story contains a section depicting whale-hunting, so let this be a trigger warning. It is relevant to the time period, though.