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Digital Audiobook
Scapegallows by Carol Birch

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Scapegallows

Publisher
Little, Brown Book Group
Publish Date
22 August 2011
Run Time
12 hours 47 minutes
Format
Audiobook
$13.95

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What to expect

New South Wales, 1817. Margaret Catchpole is stranded at a settler's homestead as the floodwater draws in, and she finds herself facing death - as she has several times before.

She looks back over her life - the complex and stormy partnership with Will Laud, a 'hell-born-babe', that led her into the world of smuggling and in to a double life. After Will is forced to flee the country, Margaret is taken on as a nursemaid by the wealthy Cobbold family, but a crime against them means she is tried and sentenced to hang. She avoids death but when an elaborate gaol escape fails, Will is shot dead and Margaret captured. Sentenced once more to hang, she looks death full in the face. But she doesn't die. Her sentence is transmuted to transportation for life to Australia.

The novel explores a deeply divided society. Ironically, by reaching the lowest depths and being cast out by the society which spawned her, Margaret finds her true role as an independent pioneer in a young colony.

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Details

Author
Carol Birch
Narrator
Anna Bentinck
Duration
12 hours 47 minutes
Release Date
22 August 2011
ISBN
9781405510561
Format
Audiobook
Publisher
Little, Brown Book Group
Genre
Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general

Synopsis

New South Wales, 1817. Margaret Catchpole is stranded at a settler's homestead as the floodwater draws in, and she finds herself facing death - as she has several times before.She looks back over her life - the complex and stormy partnership with Will Laud, a 'hell-born-babe', that led her into the world of smuggling and in to a double life. After Will is forced to flee the country, Margaret is taken on as a nursemaid by the wealthy Cobbold family, but a crime against them means she is tried and sentenced to hang. She avoids death but when an elaborate gaol escape fails, Will is shot dead and Margaret captured. Sentenced once more to hang, she looks death full in the face. But she doesn't die. Her sentence is transmuted to transportation for life to Australia. The novel explores a deeply divided society. Ironically, by reaching the lowest depths and being cast out by the society which spawned her, Margaret finds her true role as an independent pioneer in a young colony.

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