It’s Christmastime in Sydney in 1851 and carpenter John Leary is spending it with his beloved sister, her husband and their little son. John is a lucky young man, because most newcomers to the colony are on their own in New South Wales and have left family far behind, while they seek their fortune in the goldfields or the risky enterprises of Sydney town.The year before, John emigrated from Ireland with the blessing of his parents, but they disapproved of Maureen’s choices. A woman ahead of her time, she went against their wishes to train as a teacher in a Protestant institution and live alone in Dublin. Even worse, she was raped by her landlord on the very eve of John’s departure from Ireland.Here in Sydney, John vows to offer the help he could not give her in that crisis. Will she heal faster by confiding what happened to her, or has the marriage to Liam Forde been her pathway out of trauma? John yearns to know how the miracle of their love and marriage occurred.This is Maureen’s story: of how a friend and a would-be avenger came to her aid, and of her journey from shame and horror to accepting intimacy with a man, once she mustered the courage to share the truth about the worst day of her life. Read more