When Betsy, a strong and determined spinster of independent means, adopts her motherless nephew, she doesn’t mean to fall head over heels in love with the child. When she plucks William from the bosom of his family, she does it out of self-interest, hoping to thwart unwelcome suitors. Her plans to raise William as a gentleman, allowing his respectability to rub off on herself almost work. But things don’t always go to plan.

One person, she hasn’t considered is Joe, William’s brother, who, years later, comes to revenge his loss, with devastating...

A moment's foolish mistake costs sixteen-year-old Nora her freedom and her family. Sentenced to transportation she has to grow up fast to survive prison, the long journey and then life as an assigned servant in Van Diemen's Land of the 1820s. She is sustained by real friendships with other prisoners, Sarah and Helen. Can anyone of them overcome the pitfalls of convict life to become pioneering settlers of modern-day Tasmania? This is a story of love and friendship amidst the trials of 19th-century Australian colonial life.