Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024
A DAILY MAIL NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2023
LONGLISTED FOR BEST FICTION IN THE INDIE BOOK AWARDS AUSTRALIA 2024

Born into the sweat and drudgery of a New South Wales sheep farm at the end of the 19th century, Dolly Maunder is different to her siblings. She will not endure the small, servile existence of a wife. Dolly, bright, ambitious and stubborn, dreams of a different fate, of building something that she truly owns.

She will do whatever it takes to be the woman she deserves to be. Even with a husband and children, Dolly pushes the boundaries of what is ‘proper’ and what a wife and mother ought to do, as war spreads across Europe and the rules are forever changed. But every life has its limits. What happens when Dolly’s wanderlust finally risks taking her too far?

Publisher Review

A work of history, biography, story and memoir, all fused into a novel that suggests the great potential of literary art as redeemer, healer and pathway to understanding . . . the writing sparkles with Grenville’s gift for transcendently clear imagery * * Guardian * * Vivid and memorable . . . [Kate Grenville] offers us the ambivalence and complex textures of experience without losing the rhythm and pace of realist fiction — SARAH MOSS * * Times Literary Supplement * * A powerful novel about a woman determined to rise above her station . . . A privilege to share in Grenville’s indomitable grandmother’s journey * * The Times * * Grenville . . . tells Dolly’s story swiftly, cleanly and compassionately, all the while refusing to let this difficult, furious woman off the hook. Excellent * * Daily Mail * * The masterful Grenville addresses the question of why this brilliant, frustrated woman struggled to express love to her children with clarity and compassion in a swift, thoroughly absorbing book * * Mail Online * * A memorable portrait of a proto-feminist determined to free herself from society’s expectations * * Sunday Times * * Grenville astutely portrays the friction between the heroine and her daughter, who is stung by her mother’s steely reserve – perhaps because she can’t see the life story we’ve just read * * Mail on Sunday, Best New Fiction * * Brings readers into intimate acquaintance with the lives of women in late 19th- and early 20th-century rural Australia . . . elevated by Grenville’s crystalline prose * * Globe and Mail * * Praise for Kate Grenville: Beautifully written, insistently eloquent and expressive of connection . . . [a] stunning literary achievement * * Guardian * * Kate Grenville spins a delicately teasing novel about the inherent untrustworthiness of the official record . . . beautiful and subtle * * Financial Times * *