 Although sparking hostility from some historians such as the likes of an Australian academic, Mark McKenna, who published an article in which he criticized Kate Grenville, claiming that Grenville had referred to The Secret River as a "work of history,", however, he could not provide a source for the statement.It received a positive response from many Aboriginal people, Grenville has said "they recognise that the book is my act of acknowledgement, my way of saying