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New South Wales, 1817. Margaret Catchpole is stranded at a settler's homestead as the floodwater draws in, and she detects herself facing death - as she has several times before. She looks back again over her life - the complex and stormy relationship with Will Laud, a 'hell-born-babe', that led her into the world of smuggling and in to a double life. After Will is forced to flee the country, Margaret is taken on as a nursemaid by the rich Cobbold family, but a crime against them means she is tried and sentenced to hang. She avoids death but when a more elaborate gaol get away fails, Will is shot inactive and Margaret captured. Sentenced once more to hang, she looks death full in the face. But she doesn't die.Her sentence is transmuted to travel for life to Australia. The book explores a deeply divided contemporary society. Ironically, by achieving the most affordable depths and being cast out by the contemporary society which spawned her, Margaret detects her true role as an unbiased pioneer in a young colony.
