- Title:
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A Room Made of Leaves
- Written by:
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Kate Grenville
- Read by:
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Valerie Bader
- Format:
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Unabridged CD Audio Book
- Number of CDs:
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8
- Duration:
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9 hours 21 minutes
- Published:
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August 27 2020
- Available Date:
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August 27 2020
- Age Category:
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Adult
- ISBN:
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9780655689775
- Genres:
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Fiction; Historical Fiction
- Publisher:
-
Bolinda/Canongate audio
Qty
Format
Price
Bolinda price
International bestselling author
Award winning author
Australian author
What if Elizabeth Macarthur – wife of the notorious John Macarthur, wool baron in early Sydney – had written a shockingly frank secret memoir?
It is 1788. Twenty-one-year-old Elizabeth is hungry for life but, as the ward of a Devon clergyman, knows she has few prospects. When proud, scarred soldier John Macarthur promises her the earth one midsummer’s night, she believes him.
But Elizabeth soon realises she has made a terrible mistake. Her new husband is reckless, tormented, driven by some dark rage at the world. He tells her he is to take up a position as Lieutenant in a New South Wales penal colony and she has no choice but to go. Sailing for six months to the far side of the globe with a child growing inside her, she arrives to find Sydney Town a brutal, dusty, hungry place of makeshift shelters, failing crops, scheming and rumours.
All her life she has learned to be obliging, to fold herself up small. Now, in the vast landscapes of an unknown continent, Elizabeth has to discover a strength she never imagined and passions she could never express.
Inspired by the real life of a remarkable woman, this is an extraordinarily rich, beautifully wrought tale of resilience, courage and the mystery of human desire.
‘There is no doubt Grenville is one of our greatest writers‘
The Sunday Mail
‘Kate Grenville is a literary alchemist, turning the leaden shadow of the historical Elizabeth Macarthur into a luminescent, golden woman for our times. Intelligent, compassionate, strategic and dead sexy, Grenville’s Macarthur is an unforgettable character who makes us question everything we thought we knew about our colonial past. A polished gem of a novel by a writer who is as brave as she is insightful. I simply loved it.’
Clare Wright