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The Secret River
On sale
5th April 2007
Price: £15.98
Selected:
Audiobook Downloadable / ISBN-13: 9781405503341
This story is set in London, 1807. William Thornhill, happily wedded to his childhood sweetheart Sal, is a waterman on the River Thames. Life is tough but bearable until William makes a mistake, a bad mistake for which he and his family are made to pay dearly. His sentence: to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. The Thornhills arrive in this harsh and alien land that they cannot understand and which feels like a death sentence. But, among the convicts there is a rumour that freedom can be bought, that ‘unclaimed’ land up the Hawkesbury offers an opportunity to start afresh, far away from the township of Sydney. When William takes a hundred acres for himself, he is shocked to find Aboriginal people already living on the river. And other recent arrivals – Thomas Blackwood, Smasher Sullivan and Mrs. Herring – are finding their own ways to respond to them. Soon Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, has to make the most difficult decision of his life…
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Reviews
In this dazzling novel . . . Grenville achieves a fine balance of sympathy for the Aboriginal population of her native Australia . . .Stunning.
Grenville, as ever, describes an Australia so overwhelmingly beautiful that readers will lust after its sunbaked soul too.