Immersive adventures for kids: ‘Revenge of the Barbarians’ by S J Morris
I was contacted by the author of this novel for middle grade readers, asking if I’d be interested in writing a review. Since it is a life mission of mine to encourage young readers to fall in love with historical fiction, of course I said yes.
Revenge of the Barbarians is set in Roman-ruled Britain, and the author has planned a whole series of similar books set in different historical times and places. Fabulous idea.
As the series name suggests (Time Path Adventures) the book is of the ‘choose your own adventure’ genre. Each small chapter allows the reader to choose one of three next step options, and be directed to the appropriate page for that choice. The options vary (from the relatively ‘safe’ to the definitely adventurous) and each next step, of course, offers further options. There are several chapters which eventually readers will land on, which serve as resolutions (again, varied) to the story.
The added bonus is that readers can go back and choose a different option to see where it leads, as many times as they wish.
The book is written in present tense and second person point of view, addressing the reader as ‘you’. This is a powerful way to immediately engage readers and make them a central part of the narrative.
It opens with the main character (the reader) as a youngster in Roman-controlled Fort Vindolanda near Hadrian’s Wall, needing to respond to a definitely scary scenario. A frightened messenger has just arrived, babbling about ‘eyes in the forest’. Is this a group of Calendonian barbarians about to invade? Or something to do with the magic of the Celtic Druids that appear and disappear in mysterious ways? What to do: report the situation to the disbelieving adults at the fort, or investigate yourself?
What I enjoyed about this book is that the author asserts in the preface that ‘history should never be boring’, then proves why, with an adventure that keeps the pages turning. There are dollops of humour, too, of the type youngsters will definitely enjoy (latrine jokes, anyone?)
I also love that there are many historical details sprinkled throughout, based on real history. There’s a helpful Glossary right at the beginning so that any readers not familiar with aspects of ancient Rome can quickly find the info there.
A terrific start to a promising series for younger readers that will be sure to engage and – I’m sure – turn them onto historical fiction.
Revenge of the Barbarians was published by Time Path Adventures in 2025 and is available on Amazon books.
My thanks to the author for a review copy.Contested stories: ‘Warra Warra Wai’ by Darren Rix & Craig Cormick
If, like me, you grew up with stories of ‘Captain Cook’ and his heroic voyages around the world, ‘discovering’ ‘claiming’ and ‘naming’ great swathes of the Pacific region including the continent now known as Australia, Warra Warra Wai will be an eye-opening read.
With its subtitle – one of the best I have ever seen – (How Indigenous Australians discovered Captain Cook and what they tell about the coming of the Ghost People) the authors make clear that this book, while tracing Cook’s voyage up the entire east coast of Australia, will be focused on the stories from the shore: what has been remembered, handed down, and/or written about from the perspectives of the First Peoples encountered by those on board the Endeavour.
Flipping the usual script allows for a rich exploration of those people, their Countries, languages, lifestyles, law and lore. What did they make of the strange ship and its passengers? What beliefs, customs and protocols dictated the ways in which these newcomers were met by the people on the shore? And what followed this first contact – the years and decades in which more white people arrived and the consequences for the land and its First Peoples.
The authors (Gunditjmara-GunaiKurnai radio broadcaster and culture sites officer Darren Rix, and author and science communicator Craig Cormick) set out with a seemingly simple goal: visit all of the places on the east coast renamed by James Cook, put back the original names, and ask the First Nations people there what stories they wanted to share. As simple as that. Just ask them. (p1)
Simple, and profound.
The result is a stunning ‘travel memoir’ of sorts, meeting people who act as guides to their Country, their Creation stories and cultural practices, the law that has guided their people for thousands of years. They also describe their histories since European contact, most of which is, unsurprisingly, grim: disease; violence; theft; rape; forced removal of family; forced removal from traditional homelands; forced discontinuation of traditional lifestyles, religious practices, language; thinly disguised slavery; to name the more obvious ones.
There are commonalities, apart from the dreadful violence and mistreatment. For example, all the stories of the first sightings of the English ship include the fact that each of the groups along that shoreline knew about the strange arrival ahead of time, through smoke signals and other communication from the people further south.
There are multiple interpretations of events and behaviours: those recorded in Cook’s journal, the ship’s logs, or the journals of the two other men on board who write about events as they occured, and those from oral histories of the First People involved. As the authors point out,
So what does it all mean? Well, it probably means that because most people cherrypick the information that agrees with their biases and opinions, different readers will conclude that the arguments support their own point of view on the matter.
Warra Warra Wai p299
There are many ‘what if?’ or sliding door moments, where if one or more of the people involved had chosen a different behaviour, or understood a little more about what they were seeing/hearing, or given events a slightly different interpretation, history could have played out rather differently. I find those moments rather sad to contemplate: missed opportunities, I suppose.
There are stories of resilience, strength, resistance. Of slowly reclaiming language and culture. Of acts of kindness and reconciliation. Of truth-telling and of people willing to listen.
The use of the word ‘renaming’ for Cook’s bestowing English names on the places he sailed past reinforces the fact that everywhere he looked was already know, beloved, sometimes sacred Country to its First Peoples. It was not empty land waiting to be discovered and claimed by white people.
Since the High Court ruling on the Mabo case, the terra nullius fallacy is no longer widely held, but so many others remain. This book is an accessible and enlightening way to learn more about Australian history – from both sides of the shore – and reconsider some of the more contested stories of our national beginning.
As is often the case, the First People interviewed for this book demonstrate generosity of spirit and a desire to reach out across the cultural divide. When asked what he most wanted Australians to know, one interviewee, Phil Rist (a Nywaigi man living in Cardwell, across from Munamudanamy or Hinchinbrook Island) had a reply that sweeps aside all the complexity of the past:
It’s not about race, it’s about need. If we agree that this is the oldest living continuing culture in the world, so how do we protect that?
Warra Warra Wai p229
If you are going to be travelling through any parts of the eastern coastal country of Australia, I would suggest taking this book with you. It will give you insights, stories and understandings that most travel guides cannot provide.
Warra Warra Wai was published by Scribner in 2024.
Through Nancy’s eyes: ‘The Scent of Oranges’ by Kathy George
When I was eight, my mother took me to the cinema to see the newly released film adaption of the hit musical Oliver! How I loved it. I think I became a little obsessed by the songs, the setting, the characters: innocent young Oliver, played by Mark Lester, the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild), Mr Bumble (Harry Secombe), the villainous Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) and Fagin (Ron Moody), and lovely, cheeky and caring Nancy (Shani Wallis).
I do, however, also remember being rather traumatised by the (spoiler alert) murder of Nancy. That scene on London Bridge, with the grey dank tenements of Dickensian London all around and Nancy’s headlong rescue dash with Oliver – only to end in her death at the hands of her lover – well, it affected me deeply. When I think about it now, it was possibly my first introduction to the awful fact that there was such a thing as what we now know as ‘intimate partner abuse’ and that it can and does lead to women’s deaths.
Since that time I have read the original Oliver Twist as penned by Dickens, but I must admit that scenes from that 1968 film have stayed with me too.
So I picked up Kathy George’s 2024 retelling of this classic tale with interest. In The Scent of Oranges we see the events and places through the eyes of Nancy, and are privy to her thoughts and feelings about her life.
I appreciated that this author did not attempt to give Nancy a twenty-first-century kind of ‘agency’. She is still a prostitute, pimped out by the deplorable Fagin and Sikes, living in the kind of grinding proverty that would erode the hope and joy from most lives. However she is able to articulate, if only to herself, some cherished hopes and small pleasures, and her reactions to the things that happen to and around her.
The orange in the title is a symbol of the occasional, tiny glimpses she has of beauty and the marvellous gifts of the natural world – although she only ever tastes the fruit twice in her short life.
Nancy in this version is nothing if not pragmatic, acutely aware that her future holds little to look forward to – despite meeting and falling in love with a gentleman who treats her kindly and promises her a better life. This book does not change Nancy’s fate, so readers who are familiar with the original story know in advance that this promise can never be fulfilled. Still, we cheer for Nancy and celebrate her few small, hard-won successes.
My only quibble with the novel is the use of vernacular spelling and terms for Nancy’s voice: ‘wot’, ‘carnt’, ‘innit’ and so on. For some reason I found this a bit jarring.
But that’s a small niggle. Overall the novel does a great job of bringing to life the London of Nancy, the Dodger, Fagin and Sikes, in all its filth, energy and struggle. I very much appreciated seeing a version of the story through Nancy’s eyes.
The Scent of Oranges was published by HarperCollins Australia in 2024.
The story of a story: ‘Always Home, Always Homesick’ by Hannah Kent
Are you fascinated by how stories are created? Where does a writer, filmmaker, or songwriter get that first spark, the idea that grabs them and insists tell this story.
It’s something I have always been interested in. I love learning about how a movie goes from storyboard to opening night, or how a lick of a guitar riff becomes a hit song.
I pored over Kate Grenville’s In Search of the Secret River in which she details the research and other preparation that went into the writing of her best-selling historical novel The Secret River. Likewise her more recent Unsettled, a memoir of coming to terms with uncomfortable truths in our personal, family and national history, also relevant to that ground-breaking earlier work.
So I was delighted to pick up a copy of Hannah Kent’s latest work, Always Home, Always Homesick.
In a way, it’s the story of how she wrote her best-known story to date, Burial Rites, first published in 2013. This historical novel was based on the tragic real-life character of Agnes Magnusdottir who was tried for her role in the brutal murder of two men on a remote farm in Iceland in the 1800s. Agnes was found guilty and was the last woman to be executed in Iceland.
Hannah learned of Agnes and her fate while she was a young student in Iceland on a year’s Rotary Exchange program. If the novel’s subject matter had not already interested me, the circumstances of its beginnings certainly did, because decades before Hannah set off on her exchange adventure, I had done likewise – to the USA, not Iceland – but like Hannah, leaving family and home behind for a year to live with several different families in the town to which I was sent.
I was intrigued that this young woman was so captivated by a story from her host country that after her return to Australia, Agnes’s fate stayed in her mind. Hannah returned to Iceland several times, including to conduct research in Icelandic archives and museums but also in the places Agnes lived, worked and eventually died. All of these experiences went into the book that quickly became a global best-seller and launched the author’s literary career.
Always Home, Always Homesick is, at its core, a ‘love letter’ to the country that changed her life. She writes about the moment she decided to apply for the Rotary exchange program and why, that This is the thing that will lead me further into life, that will allow me to breathe lung-deep of it. (ebook p54)
Then the excitement and trepidation of preparing for her year away, trying to learn about Iceland and its language at a time when there was not the ready access to such information as we now have. Donning the rather ghastly Rotary exchange student uniform (the green blazer with its Australiana pins obviously not changed much since my time in the late 1970s…) and hoping that the Rotary contact meeting her at the airport is on time and will recognise her as the exchange student. Getting on that plane takes courage and hope.
I remember all those feelings!
Then the confusion of arriving in a foreign land where customs and behaviours can be so different. And for Hannah, trying to quickly pick up an entirely new language from scratch. Starting school almost immediately on arrival – a daunting proposition. Loneliness and feeling isolated to start with, until breaking through with a warm, friendly family who welcome her as one of their own. Again, there were some echoes of my own time on exchange here.
She experiences the full gamut of Iceland’s seasonal changes and its stark, dramatic beauty, and begins to channel her feelings about it into writing:
I am falling in love with Iceland, and I need to articulate the hold it has over me. My writing, once a balm for solitude and lonliness, takes on a euphoric urgency. Writing now feels like prayer.
Always Home, Always Homesick ebook p192
When her exchange year is over and she returns to Australia, she studies creative writing and works seriously on her craft. But Agnes’s story is always in her mind so it is inevitable that when she returns to the embrace of her new-found family and friends, the research becomes another focus for her time there.
This was also of great interest to me: having trailed around historic sites in Australia and England in search of places of significance in stories I wanted to tell, I loved reading about this aspect of her writing. The hours spent in Icelandic archives, painstakingly examining census documents for a glimpse of Agnes or her family. Translating old documents into English. Taking hundreds of photos in museums. Reading, listening and watching archival and modern-day accounts of Agnes’s life, crime, trial and execution.
All the things that go into the story of a story.
Always Home, Always Homesick was published by Picador in 2025.
Weasel words of past & present: ‘Unsettled’ by Kate Grenville
I had been waiting for this book, from the moment I first heard about it.
Kate Grenville’s earlier work, The Secret River (published 2005) has become something of an Australian classic. It’s fictionalised account of her ancestor Solomon Wiseman’s life as a convict, then a wealthy settler on the Hawkesbury River sparked discussion of the realities of the interface between white and black histories of this country.
Since then she has written several other works of historical fiction, and some non-fiction, inspired by or about the lives of her ancestors and their times.
Now she has turned her sharp analysis to the question of ‘What does it mean to be on land that was taken from other people? Now that we know how the taking was done, what do we do with that knowledge?’
Subtitled ‘A journey through time and place’, Unsettled is her account of a pilgrimage of sorts, in which she travels through the places of significance in her family stories, passed on to her by her mother. She is searching for the hidden side of those stories, the people deliberately or carelessly written out of history: the First Peoples with whom her ancestors would have interacted.
In my research and writing about my own family history I have struggled with these questions and the silences of the past. What part did my ancestors play in the dispossession of the First Nations of this land? Were they perpetrators of any of the many acts of violence towards Aboriginal people that took place in colonial and later times? How would I feel if I discovered evidence of this? What would I do with that knowledge?
Like Ms Grenville, I came to the conclusion that all of my ancestors were, in some capacity, complicit in the long act of dispossession since 1788. Many (like the convicts sent here on the transport ships from England and Ireland) unwillingly so. Others (like Grenville, I have ancestors who ‘took up’ land as squatters, benefiting enormously from what was essentially a free-for-all land grab in the early years of white settlement) did so very willingly indeed. Later generations lived (as I do today) in country that was stolen, unceded land.
It is a difficult truth to stare in the face and one that, for generations, white Australians preferred not to see.
Hence the weasel words used to describe the acts of stealing land and the people who stole it (taking up land, opening it up, squatting, land grants, settlers, pioneers, explorers) and ones that were used about the people from whom the land was stolen (blacks, savages, nomads, going walkabout, as examples.) The latter demonstrated a supreme lack of understanding of the subtle and sophisticated worldview and culture of the First Peoples, while the former justified the wholesale robbery of the land and all it contained by the invading colonists.
This book is all about seeing things differently:
Now that I think about it. That’s the thing – I’m thinking about things differently now, rather than sliding along on the well-lubricated surface of unremarkable words. Thinking in a way that allows a whole other story to be glimpsed. No, not even a story, just a suggestion of a suspicion, embedded so far below the surface it’s easy to pooh-pooh it as ridiculous.
Unsettled p35This is a very personal journey and a very personal story. But Grenville’s skill as a storyteller weaves a tale that is both individual and general to all Australians. While imparting her unique responses to the places she visits, the experiences she has on her travels and what she finds in her research, the questions she poses are for us all to consider.
Her comments about the popularity of family history resonate with me, and I think are meaningful on a bigger scale as well:
we…need to be asking questions about our forebears. Not to reassure ourselves, and not to make any claims for ourselves, but to learn how we really fit – and the ways we don’t fit – into the story of being here.
Unsettled p206I could not agree more.
Here is Kate Grenville discussing the impulse that set her on the journey of exploration that resulted in Unsettled.
Unsettled was published by Black Inc Books in 2025
Island life: ‘Spirit of the Crocodile’ by Aaron Fa’Aoso & Michelle Scott Tucker with Lyn White
A middle-grade story about a youngster growing up on Saibai Island in the Torres Strait, this well-told yarn skilfully introduces aspects of daily life and the unique Torres Strait culture in a lively and relateable way.
Ezra is twelve, and he and his best mate Mason love their life on Saibai, where they fish, go to school, play sport, learn Island dance and song, and try (sometimes unsuccessfully) to stay out of trouble.
But the school year is drawing to a close and next year they must leave Saibai and travel to Thursday Island, where the nearest high school is located. This means being away from home and family for much of the year. While Mason is keen for the adventure, Ezra is not so sure. Why can’t everything just stay as it is?
Then trouble arrives with a dangerous, out-of-season storm combined with a surprise high tide that hits the island. It poses a threat to everything Ezra holds dear – his home, even his loved ones. And he and Mason are called on to help out in the emergency. Can Ezra measure up to the expectations? It’s a scary time and even the adults around him are troubled by this disaster. Is this another result of climate change, along with the rising sea waters that may eventually swallow their beloved island?
The story opens with the excitement of a crocodile spotted on the island’s jetty. The crocodile is the totem of Ezra’s clan – Koedal – and as the novel progresses, he draws strength from the knowledge that his totem animal represents ancient power and toughness.
Readers will learn much about aspects of Torres Strait culture and traditions: food, dance, ceremony, the importance of family and community connections and ties that keep individuals strong. It’s fantastic to see a book for younger readers that focuses on a First Nations community about whom many Australians might know relatively little.
My one disappointment is that there is minimal language other than English used in the narrative. As most people in the Torres Strait speak at least two, if not three, languages fluently, it would have been a great opportunity to introduce more words from Torres Strait Creole and the Saibai language of Kala Kawa Ya.
I have a personal interest in this book and its subject matter: I spent some time on Saibai back in the 1980s and my son is a member of the Koedal clan through his father’s people. So naturally I was interested in the portrayal of the island life today and from a youngster’s perspective.
I found Ezra’s character entirely relateable to any twelve-year-old facing the challenges of growing into the teenage years, facing major change, family complications, and environmental challenges.
He makes mistakes, but by the end of the novel he has learnt some valuable lessons about himself and importantly about others and his community. He learns that it feels good to be involved and to work with others to help make things right again after the storm. He also learns that the right thing to do is usually pretty obvious.
Spirit of the Crocodile is published by Allen & Unwin in 2025.
A nod to the gothic: ‘The Midnight Estate’ by Kelly Rimmer
I’m a bit of a sucker for ‘book within a book’ stories. Done well, they can have you intruiged from the moment you realise there is a connection between the two seemingly unrelated narratives. Think Magpie Murders which added a delightful dual-timeline component as well as two murder mysteries to solve.
Australian author Kelly Rimmer writes excellent historical fiction, often weaving together legacies from the Second World War with modern-day protagonists in very moving ways. The Midnight Estate is a little different, although here, too, past events cast long shadows over the present.
Fiona Winslow moves back to country NSW after an emotionally exhausting year, planning on restoring the crumbling mansion that belonged to her beloved uncle and was once home to herself, her mother and her cousin. Since her uncle’s death it has stood empty and neglected and she is faced with a mammoth task, not helped by inexplicable opposition by her mother towards her plans – and rumours in the town that the house is haunted.
While cleaning and sorting her uncle’s old furniture and belongings, she comes across a box of books, sent by the publishers to her uncle, who had been a famous award-winning writer. As she begins to read The Midnight Estate, Fiona is puzzled, then intruiged by apparent similarities between her family’s story and the novel’s. Her uncle’s name is not on the book, but who wrote it? And why do some of the characters resemble people she knows?
The old mansion house, while a beautiful haven for Fiona as a child, begins to feel less welcoming, as she begins to piece together parts of a family story that go back a generation. There are dark secrets that must be uncovered before Fiona can reconcile what she thought she knew about herself and her family with what she learns, and finally feel that she has come home at last.
There are enough creaks in the night for The Midnight Estate to feel like an old-fashioned gothic mystery. However, the novel’s theme deals with an enduring and contemporary issue, that of coercive control and intimate partner violence; skillfully done and very believable.
The Midnight Estate is published by Hachette in July 2025.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a review copy.
Keeping it real for kids: New picture book releases from HarperCollins
Andrew Daddo’s Grandpa’s Guide to Happiness follows on from the earlier Grandma’s Guide to Happiness, another in a recent trend of books for children celebrating the special role that grandparents can play in youngsters’ lives. The grandpa here knows that it’s the simple things that make life worth living: keeping busy, tinkering in the shed, enjoying time outdoors, playing music and games (even if you’re not very good at either), spending time making happy memories. Celebrating ‘a job well done. Or done well. Or just done’ with a cup of tea and maybe cake.
There are some chuckle-worthy moments, including the twosome on Grandpa’s motorbike, wearing helmets but no other safety gear, accompanied by the text:
‘I love my Grandpa’s old motorbike, with the special spot just for me.
When he gets it going, he reckons we’ll ride it for real.’
It was then I noticed that the illustration showed the bike chocked up on bricks. Cute.The illustrations reflects Christopher Nielsen’s passion for mid-century culture and design and add another level of humour to the story.
Worst Farmer Ever is written by Pat Cummins with Michael Wagner, Cummins possibly better known as captain of the Australian cricket team. A cricketing theme does sneak in at the end, so no surprises there. It’s a cute story of Farmer Pat who, with son Albie, goes about their farm spotting problems that must be fixed: a hole in the fence of the cow paddock, a leaking water trough, apples being eaten by birds.
Pat has what we might call creative solutions to these problems, much to Albie’s delighted admiration. But while the text tells one story, little eyes will enjoy seeing the real results of Farmer Pat’s ‘fixes’ in the clever illustrations by Louis Shea.
The Amazing True Story of How Babies Are Made by Fiona Katauskas is not a new book, but a special updated release to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its publication.
WIth cartoon-like (but accurate) illustrations and plain, factual text perfect for younger children, the whole story of human reproduction is told: from the physical differences between baby boys and girls, changes during puberty, sex and the fertilisation of egg and sperm, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding.
It’s an inclusive telling which also explains multiple births, IVF, caesarian births, etc.
Along with the frank and honest narration there are touches of humour especially in the illustrations.
This one is a perennial; it deserves to stay on the shelves for a very long time.
All of these titles are being released by HarperCollins Children’s Books in July 2025.
My thanks to the publishers for copies to review.Buried secrets? ‘Treasure and Dirt’ by Chris Hammer
Published in 2022, Treasure and Dirt is set in the fictional outback NSW town of Finnigan’s Gap, loosely based on Lightening Ridge, famous for its opals.
Chris Hammer does ‘place’ brilliantly in all his novels. As Sydney-based Homicide detective Ivan Lucic steps off the plane at the Finnigan’s Gap airstrip to investigate the bizarre murder of a long-time resident and miner, readers can feel the slap of the heat as it hits him, dressed as he is in city clothes. The heat and the surrounding landscape of the town become characters in themselves, factors that locals and visitors alike must navigate simply to exist in this unforgiving environment.
There are multiple layers to the crime and the investigation. The murder itself, of course, and the complexities surrounding motive, method and circumstances that are revealed as the detectives begin their work.
Lucic is assisted by an inexperienced detective, Nell Buchanan, who had previously been stationed at Finnigan’s Gap and so has valuable local knowledge. She sees this as her big chance to make her mark, get started on the ladder of successful solves while working alongside a well-known Detective like Lucic.
However their early encounters leave Nell with mixed feelings; she isn’t sure what to make of him. Having read later books featuring the Ivan and Nell team, such as The Tilt and The Seven, I enjoyed reading their ‘back story’: their first time working together, with all the awkwardness and unfamiliarity that comes with that.
Another complicating layer in this investigation is thrown in by the police Professional Standards unit: a whiff of corruption or wrongdoing always throws the cat among the pigeons, after all. There are corporate mega-rich who seem to act with total impunity (just imagine!!) lots of hard-drinking, hard-living, worn out miners leading somewhat eccentric lives (to put it mildly), a small team of local police with their own issues to deal with, and a twenty-year old family tragedy. Oh, and a local cult led by a pretty bizarre chap who calls himself the Seer.
Just your everyday outback community, then.
Maybe not, but it does make for a heady mix for our investigators to dig through in their search for answers.
In the end, they are unable to tie everything up with a neat bow. Much more like real life, I suspect. Towards the novel’s final pages, Nell reflects that:
They’ve achieved something, she and Ivan. Maybe not enough, but something. Brought justice to some, resolution to others. She looks to her partner and realises that she likes him. At last, she likes him. Understands him, respects him. Maybe even admires him. A good man, trying his best.
Treasure and Dirt, p703 (ebook)Treasure and Dirt was published in 2022 by Allen and Unwin.
Bringing history to life: ‘Free’ by Meg Keneally
Meg Keneally’s first stand-alone historical fiction Fled (published 2019) was inspired by the true story of Mary Bryant, a First Fleet convict who effected a daring escape from Sydney by boat. This was followed up by The Wreck (2020) which featured events that followed on from the notorious Peterloo Massacre in England, and introduced readers to Mary Thistle – a character inspired by another amazing historical figure, Mary Reibey. It is Molly Thistle who is at the centre of Fled.
The novel opens with young Molly, living in poverty with her grandmother in England. When she is sent to work as a scullery maid in a wealthy household and find herself bullied and compromised by the master’s valet, she sees no option but to escape. But she does it on horseback – on the master’s valuable mare, and dressed as a boy.
This part of the story echoes something of the origins of Mary Reibey, who was arrested at a very young age for horse theft (and also while dressed as a boy.)
From here Molly experiences all of the horrors of the British ‘justice’ system of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The courts where the poor had no voice. The appalling overcrowded gaols where men, women and children were thrown together, and survival of the fittest was the only rule that mattered. Molly quickly learns the rules, adapts – and survives.
On arrival in Sydney Town Molly is rowed upriver to the Parramatta Female Factory – another gaol for female convicts, which also served as a workhouse, maternity hospital and a ‘marriage market’ (where free settlers and emancipists could come in search of a wife.) I enjoyed the scenes here, as the author, like myself, has an ancestor who was an inmate of the Female Factory. Ms Keneally is a Patron of the Friends of Parramatta Female Factory and gives great support to their work.
Molly’s fortunes take a turn for the better when she marries Angus Thistle, a free settler whom she met on the transport ship. For many convict women, marriage was often the way to a better future, although to the small colonial society at the time, taking a convict wife was still frowned upon. A mistress? Perfectly acceptable and very common for military officers, free settlers and emancipists. Even a governor. Having a wife and family back in Britain was no impediment for a man taking a convict women to his bed and fathering a whole new gaggle of children in the colony. But marrying her? That was often seen as a step too far.
Molly was no simpering, decorative accessory to Angus. She works just as hard as he. Early in their marriage they build a wattle-and-daub hut together on the banks of the Hawkesbury, the wilder reaches of the colony, where the river bursts its banks and destroys farms and homes with unpredictable ferocity. Molly experiences this.
She also learns about the ferocity of the so-called ‘frontier wars’ between the original people of the region, fighting to protect their land and livlihood, and the invaders, determined to make the place theirs. Some of the stories turn her stomach with their cruelty and make her look at her fellow settlers with new, jaundiced eyes. She befriends an Aboriginal woman with a baby, just like Molly’s own new baby, and finds the stories even harder to stomach, begging Angus to move them back into Sydney to live, away from the violence.
So they do, and their family grows along with their fortunes, as Angus and Molly’s trading and ship building business flourishes. If you visit Sydney today and walk along Circular Quay to where the old warehouses are, you might imagine Molly visiting their warehouse, admiring the many different goods that Angus brings home from his voyages to far-off places. Goods that the settler communities – those with money to pay – crave: Indian muslin, tea from China, spices, wooden furniture, fine china and glassware, tobacco, the latest fashions from London…
It is Molly’s business acumen, organisational and financial skills that allows their commercial interests to prosper despite ruthless competition from other traders in the colony.
The novel includes references to the many characters and events that made Australia’s early colonial years so colourful: a succession of Governors, a military coup, corrupt officers and venal landowners, a hypocritical churchman, all fictionalised but easily identified. This is perhaps one of my hesitations about the novel. On the one hand I do understand that peopling the story with a fictionalised version of historical figures gives the author more room to play, so to speak, to move people and events around to suit the narrative; on the other hand I think it can add richness and depth to the story to have these people live in their own skin.
Anyway, that is a minor point and each writer of historical fiction makes their own judgement about this when it comes to the story they want to write.
And the story of Molly Thistle is a beauty, as is the story of the woman she was inspired by – Mary Reibey. As I wrote in my review of Grantlee Kieza’s terrific biography of the real Mary, The Remarkable Mrs Reibey, there are some overlaps between her story and that of my own convict ancestor, Jane Longhurst, another early colonial woman who survived the convict years to become a wealthy and successful businesswoman, in a place and time when being both a woman and an ex-convict should not have allowed it.
Meg Keneally has brought Mary’s world to us in a different form, through another woman’s story. As I often say, the early history of modern Australia is quite an extraordinary one, much more interesting than I remember from my school history lessons! Stories like this help to bring our true history to life.
Free was published by Echo Publishing in 2024.
