Book description
Seventeen-year-old Liza is happy working as a lady's maid - until her
employers decide to emigrate and her father makes up his mind that she
is to wed an older widower whom she detests. Determined to avoid a
loveless marriage, Liza plans to run away, and when the widower rapes
her in order to force her to marry him, she flees back to the family for
whom she worked, and they all set out on the long voyage to Australia.
On board ship Liza realises she has fallen pregnant, and that even if
she can survive the journey, the demanding life of a settler in 1850s
Western Australia will be made even harder by an illegitimate child. But
Liza is to find that in addition to deprivation of the worst sort,
Australia will offer her opportunities she could never have dreamt of
back home in Lancashire. Anna Jacobs grew up in Lancashire and
emigrated to Australia a while ago, but still visits the UK regularly to
see her family and do research, something she loves. She has two
grown-up daughters and lives with her husband in a spacious waterfront
home. Often, as she writes, dolphins frolic outside the window of her
office. Inside, the house is crammed with thousands of books.
