July 26, 2019
In 1783 England, Jenny Gwyn turns to thievery to support her impoverished family. Her arrest threatens the noose, so transportation to Australia seems a better fate. After a harrowing trip, she arrives with a bastard daughter; a marriage yields a son, but soon both are starving. Jenny and her family escape in a small boat with several other convicts, journeying north along the coast of Australia to the Dutch colony of Coepang in Timor. But they are outed as prisoners and deported to England for trial. Owing to the pettiness of her crime, Jenny's sentence is commuted, but the return voyage results in the tragic deaths of her husband and children. VERDICT Inspired by the life of Mary Bryant (1765-94), Keneally's solo debut (after the "Monsarrat Trilogy," coauthored with her father, Thomas Keneally) is not the first to fictionalize Bryant's story. However, this novel's strength is chronicling the horrors convicts experienced during transport, the desperate environment awaiting them in Australia, and the daring navigation of an unknown coastline.--Jessica Bushore, Xenia, OH
Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
February 28, 2019
Having co-written the ‘Monsarrat’ historical fiction series with her father, Meg Keneally makes her solo debut with the gripping tale of one extraordinary woman’s life-long battle for survival. Following an impoverished childhood in 18th-century Cornwall, Jenny Trelawney is arrested for highway robbery and sentenced to be transported to a new penal colony on the other side of the world. After the convicts endure a harrowing sea voyage to reach Sydney Cove, the new settlement is beset by further hardships, and Jenny decides the only way to save herself and her children is to escape to the Dutch colonies in Indonesia, some three thousand miles away. Keneally doesn’t hold back in portraying the horrors of life for the lower classes in 18th-century England, or for the fledgling colony in New South Wales. Poverty, famine, sickness and human brutality are all described in unflinching detail, but the prose never becomes histrionic; Keneally’s matter-of-fact, almost dispassionate description of what her characters endured makes their suffering all the more tangible. Inspired by the real-life convict Mary Bryant, Jenny is a captivating protagonist. Witty and determined, she is a survivor who doesn’t allow herself to lose her humanity, and her story is one of overcoming the overwhelming odds that life throws at her. Fled promises a successful solo career for Keneally.
Emily Smith is a Melbourne-based freelance reviewer