Graeme Lay - Mrs Cook and her Husband, James

The personal life of Captain James Cook is not well known. This is partly due to his equally enigmatic wife Elizabeth, who destroyed all his letters towards the end of her long life. Finding this out prompted Auckland novelist Graeme Lay to fill in the gaps himself, and recreate in a novel the story of a relationship that spanned almost 20 years and thousands of sea miles. The Secret Life of James Cook, by Graeme Lay, is published by HarperCollins.