Over the last few years an email friend of mine, whom I met through a writer’s online group, gave me (along with others) the opportunity to comment on her book, chapter by chapter. We had some very lively discussions about the things I felt were wrong with it, about which she didn’t always agree.

Anyway, it turned out this book was the sequel to a book my friend had been trying to get published, through various agents, for two or three years. She’d rewritten this first book, and revised it, and edited it until she’d probably had enough of it.

Finally, she found a firm that would publish it. There was great celebration!

The book is A Family of Strangers. My friend goes by the pseudonym, Sanchona, so I can’t tell you her real name.

Her book is the story of a young Irish girl who is thrown onto a convict ship for a misdemeanour against an upper class man who treats others with contempt. It tells, in vivid detail, the sheer horrors of life aboard a convict ship, where women in particular were treated like commodities. Some choose to be commodities, in order to survive a little better; some, like Kate, have it forced upon them.

Kate survives her long voyage at sea because she’s taken on as the mistress of one of the men on board, a man given to drunkenness who has no concerns about treating her well.

When the convicts arrive in Australia, life doesn’t get much easier, and the remainder of the story is about Kate’s gradual process of improving her situation, either by having to use a man to push herself up, or by taking on tasks that others have abandoned.

Kate grows from a naive country-girl to someone with standing and maturity. It’s a long process for her.

The book is written in a realistic style, with no holds barred as regards the awfulness of the treatment the convict women received. Nor does it stint over the bad behavior of the men that Kate comes in contact with. (Not all the male characters are bad news, by the way!)

I can tell you that by the time the sequel comes along, Kate has made her way up in the world, and stands much more as an equal in the world of men. Let’s hope the sequel gets the green light some time soon.