PUBLICATION DATE: 26 JANUARY 2023

 

Millicent ‘Millie’ Staples had been transported to Hobart Town, in the new colony of Van Diemen’s Land, guilty of the most minor of offences.

When The Cascades Female Factory at the base of Mount Wellington opened, Millie found herself unceremoniously dumped there and a life of deprivation and cruelty became part of her everyday existence.

Then fate intervened…

Millie attracted the attention of a young, kindly, and wealthy, merchant—Arthur Symonds, who fell in love with the beautiful young girl and eventually secured her Ticket of Leave.

Millie’s past, her courageous struggles, were to be denied, kept hidden for the next six generations—185 years, in fear of the shame it would bring to the family.

***

Julianne Marshall had never expected to find the small journal, along with other unusual items from the past, when she’d offered to clean out her deceased grandmother’s belongings that were stored in the roof space of her parent’s home in the affluent suburb of Battery Point, Hobart.

When she learned the age of the journal, she was stunned that the small leather-bound book was still in one piece after so many years, although tattered and somewhat the worse for wear.

As Julianne read and the family listened to secrets that had been kept locked away for generations, a passionate love story was finally revealed…    

The Van Diemen Land ‘roots’ of the well-known Marshall family were not what they’d assumed.