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Based on the lives of an early pioneering family in Melbourne and Geelong, this fictional account is a dramatic, historical adventure. It follows the life of the early settlers in Victoria, Australia. Bush Fires, Bush Rangers, Gold Diggers, and rebellion all feature in Jane Dugmore's early life. But she and her husband are driven to succeed against all probability. She is a convict's daughter who manages to escape her background, building a life of relative prosperity for her numerous children. All the time, the threat of bankruptcy haunts her family. One fire, one drought can bring all she has striven for tumbling down.

Jane never talks about the past, hiding her background from everyone. Her son, Joseph, mixed with the great and the good, from Nellie Melba to Sir Sydney Kidman, the cattle baron, but only Jane knows the truth about the family's origins.

Nearing her death, her nurse, Mary, encourages Jane to talk, to tell her stories, to reveal her secrets. Mary nursed in Egypt and on the Western Front, and has her own dark past. Sometimes their stories collide. Excitement mingles with the bleakness of disease, war, and poverty. Families sometimes support each other and sometimes tear each other apart, but at last, Jane learns to love and receive forgiveness. Mary wishes she could do the same, but her sin goes too deep.