Set in colonial Australia, this romantic novel explores love, hardship, and the strength of the human spirit. Dorothea Brande leaves the quiet harmony of her English home to accompany her soldier husband to rough-and-tumble Sydney in 1814. To soften the harshness of their life there, she begins cultivating an English garden with the help of her convict manservant, Daniel. Together, in the creation of this garden, Dorothea and Daniel find a new strength and a special kind of refuge, both in the garden and with each other. Dorothea begins to adapt to her unforgiving new environment, but her husband is steadily destroyed by it. Written in the spirit of the works of Jane Austen and George Eliot, the novel is set against a vivid backdrop of the political events of the time while the public and personal gossip of the day weave in and out of the storyline.