AustLit

'Based on a true story. Sarah Evans takes us from the pitiless streets of eighteenth-century London to the convict village at The Rocks in Sydney and a rural farm on the Hawkesbury.

'As a poor, illiterate young woman, Sarah becomes entangled in a web of cruelty and corruption where powerful men rule and the law disregards women. Raised to believe she has no rights at all, not even to justice. Sarah meets a group of political rebels while she is a prisoner and is introduced to the concepts of liberty and equality. Despite what life throws at her, she learns her own value and begins to fight for her rights, supported throughout by the street network of women. When she is accused of murdering her own child and faces the death penalty, they don't let her down.

'In the end, it is the power of thoughts and words that shapes her life, not the hardship she has known, and friendship that teaches her the most important kind of freedom: liberty of mind. 'Is that not every woman's right?' (Publication summary)