First published 2020
Evangeline finds herself pregnant and disgraced after her employer's son seduces her in early nineteenth-century London. Cast into Newgate Prison, she receives a sentence of transportation to Van Diemen's Land, Australia's penal colony. Aboard the converted slave ship Medea, she meets Hazel, a street-smart girl convicted of stealing a silver spoon. Hazel uses her skills as a midwife and herbalist to trade remedies for favors during the grueling voyage. Meanwhile, Mathinna, an Aboriginal girl whose father was chief of the Lowreenne tribe, has been adopted by the colony's new governor after her people were forcibly displaced from their ancestral lands. In Van Diemen's Land, these three women navigate a harsh new world where British colonists view the continent as empty territory despite 50,000 years of Aboriginal presence. The women face brutal conditions and systematic injustice, yet they also discover unexpected opportunities for reinvention and freedom. Their intertwined stories reveal how female friendship can flourish even in the most punishing circumstances.
Genres: historical-fiction, 19th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: London, Newgate Prison, Van Diemen's Land, Australia
Period: Early 19th Century
370 pages · Hardcover · Mariner Books
Content warnings: colonialism, violence