Jeremy must make an agonising choice. Adept at sword and pistol, he has taken a vow to seek out and slay his father's killers. Then he falls in love with a girl who will reject him if he performs this sacred duty. Romance rides a thorny path in this adventure from the 1830s, when white settlers seized land belonging to the tribal dwellers of Swan River. JOHN IVOR writes a thrilling tale that reveals the bloody start to Australia's richest state.

Aged 9, and sentenced to death In Scotland, 1829, a factory waif is about to be hanged for murder. She makes a perilous escape, and thus begins little Maggie's odyssey to womanhood. On the run, a series of adventures takes her to the far end of the world. She outsmarts Arab pirates, endures kidnapping, survives sex predators and is sold as a slave, only to find herself a bonded servant amid English gentry. They are sailing to create an Eden for themselves in the wilderness. Here, Maggie disrupts the founding ceremony. Thrills, humour and compassion blend to give this novel its original label...

Maggie is a working girl, by chance among English gentry pioneering a wilderness in The Great Southland. The settlers intend to create an Eden for themselves where, unlike turbulent Europe, class divisions are rigidly observed. At 17 Maggie falls for a dashing Hussar officer, but finds that wisdom gained only from books can be misleading. Undeterred, and prodded by her grim past, she applies her flawed knowledge to seeking justice for the dispossessed native people. To "guarantee peace" the brutal police chief of Swan River Colony is butchering them. Maggie's reasoning is sound but Fate is...

Maggie, a young interpreter, believes perfect justice can't be achieved without perfect rulers, so she fights the corrupt despots of an 1830s British Colony. And tries not to fall in love with Jeremy, her hot-headed foolish ally who is romantically pursued by a wealthy widow. Magistrates commit murder, the natives mistake a missionary as an incarnation of the sacred Rainbow Serpent come to end white settlement, and Maggie could lose her head - literally. JOHN IVOR weaves a taut and surprising conclusion to his story of struggle in the early days of Australia's richest state.