Ocean State Libraries

It was 1786 when Arthur Phillip, an ambitious captain in the Royal Navy, was assigned the formidable task of organizing an expedition to Australia in order to establish a penal colony. The squalid and turbulent prisons of London were overflowing, and crime was on the rise. Even the hulks sifting at anchor in the Thames were packed with malcontent criminals and petty thieves. So the English government decided to undertake the unprecedented move of...

Seduced by her employer's son, Evangeline, a naïve young governess in early nineteenth-century London, is discharged when her pregnancy is discovered and sent to the notorious Newgate Prison. After months in the fetid, overcrowded jail, she learns she is sentenced to "the land beyond the seas," Van Diemen's Land, a penal colony in Australia. Though uncertain of what awaits, Evangeline knows one thing: the child she carries will be born on the months-long...

"Edward Dickens, the tenth child of England's most famous author Charles Dickens, has consistently let down his parents. Unable to apply himself at school and adrift in life, the teenaged boy is sent to Australia in the hopes that he can make something of himself--or at least fail out of the public eye. He soon finds himself in the remote Outback, surrounded by Aboriginals, colonials, ex-convicts, ex-soldiers, and very few women. Even on the other...

This addictive tell-all exposes the cutthroat culture of the world's most revered fashion masthead. Kirstie Clements started at the front desk answering phones for Vogue Australia. Years of hard work, risk-taking, and determination landed her at Editor-in-Chief. This is the story of her rise to the top. Of photo shoots in the jungles of Africa, clamoring for a spot at Fashion Week, celebrity interviews, deadlines, exotic travel, betrayals,

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"It is 1885, and a crippling drought threatens to ruin the McBride family. Their land is parched, their cattle starving. When the rain finally comes, it is a miracle that renews their hope for survival. But returning home from an afternoon swimming at a remote waterhole filled by the downpour, fourteen-year-old Tommy and sixteen-year-old Billy meet with a shocking tragedy." --

"In eighteenth-century Britain, children as young as seven were tried in court as adults for crimes such as picking pockets or stealing clothes. If convicted, they could be sentenced to death or transported to the then-perilous and isolated colonies of Australia, where life was often as difficult and dangerous as it was in Britain. But transportation also meant opportunity for the lucky few. Child Convicts is about the lives of these young prisoners...

In 1932, in Sydney's deadly Razorhurst neighborhood, where crime and razor-wielding men rule, two girls with contrasting lives who share the ability to see ghosts meet over a dead body and find themselves on the run from mob bosses.