The Night Flower

A Romany girl and a disgraced governess are transported as convicts to Tasmania in this hugely entertaining Victorian gothic Two girls are brought together under the worst of circumstances: a prison ship taking them from London to "parts beyond the sea." Miriam is a Romany girl drawn from freedom in the hills to London to eke out a living playing her tin-whistle in a city where her people are despised. When her mother diesfrom cholera, the "gypsy disease"she's caught breaking and entering, and sentenced to transportation. Rose has been brought up to expect more, but when her husband dies from the "gypsy disease" and her father is sent down for illegal slave-trading, she's separated from her children and forced to take a governess's job. When she's caught pawning silver to send money back to her children, the judge shows no mercy. Barely surviving an appalling voyage, the two arrive just before Christmas into the blinding sun of the strange new island: Van Dieman's Land. Here they are sent to work in the town's nursery, where women of ill-repute give birth before being sent for correction. The nursery is run by corrupt, debauched Reverend and his idealistic son, who soon takes a fancy to Miriam. But Rose, her best friend and close confidant, watches jealously and makes plans to reverse their fortunes. This tale takes the reader on a thrilling Dickensian adventure to a Tasmanian "frontier town" where anything could happen and "morality" is made by monsters.

Sarah Stovell is a debut novelist.