The Secret River

Kate Grenville

3.81

23,048 ratings by Goodreads

ISBN 10: 0786167920 ISBN 13: 9780786167920

Publisher: Blackstone Audio Inc., 2006

After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thornhill is sentenced in 1806 to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife, Sal, and children in tow, he arrives in a harsh land that feels at first like a death sentence. But among the convicts there is a whisper that freedom can be bought, an opportunity to start afresh. Away from the infant township of Sydney, up the Hawkesbury River, are white men who have tried to do just that. But, as uninhabited as the island appears at first, Australia is full of native people, and they too claim the land as their own.

Already a best-seller in Australia, The Secret River is the dramatic and potent story of Grenville’s ancestors, who wrested a new life from the alien terrain of Australia and its native people.

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About the Author:

Kate Grenville is one of Australia's best-loved authors. Her works of fiction have won numerous awards both in Australia and internationally. The Idea of Perfection won the 2001 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction and became a long-running bestseller. In 2006 The Secret River won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Searching For The Secret River, the story behind this novel, is also available from Canongate, alongside her first novel, Lilian's Story, and The Lieutenant. Kate Grenville lives in Sydney.

From AudioFile:

For contemporary Australians, a genealogical search might well lead back to the British prisoners, circa 1800, who were exiled to the no-man's-land of New South Wales. Orange Prize winner Grenville found out little about her own family, but the heritage she creates in this historical novel is both personal and believable. Audie Award winner Simon Vance narrates with only the slightest British accent. The moment he steps into dialogue, however, the characters come alive and distinct. These men were not murderers or hardened criminals, and Vance's ability to convey sensitivity behind the gruff exterior of their voices (or, in the case of a few, the lack of sensitivity) reaches refreshingly beyond the words on the printed page. R.R. � AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright � AudioFile, Portland, Maine

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