Elsie’s childhood in Australia is riddled with jeering and bullying at school. At home, she keeps her nose in a book but she can’t always avoid her father’s hateful gaze and her mother’s often indifference. At eighty-one, she hides her earlier life by living quietly and unnoticed, but her notorious past has a way of creeping up on her. When her neighbour with an annoying dog dies and she discovers his corpse on the floor of his house, eyes of suspicion turn on her and Elsie suspects it’s her neighbour Joan, who has informed the police who she is.
Will she be able to escape the murderous image painted about her in the past or will the taunts return to haunt her remaining years?
Dom and his children Raff, Fen and Orly live on remote Shearwater Island, halfway from Australia and Antarctica. With climate change resulting in more fires, violent storms and the sea level rising with islands already submerged, they are responsible for the upkeep of a seed bank that will supply the world with food. Fen rescues a woman tangled in kelp and Dom discovers her wrecked craft and dead skipper on the other side of the island. When Rowan recovers from near death, she grows suspicious of Dom who is vague about the whereabouts of her husband. Likewise, Dom grows wary of her as she has not revealed that she’s come for her husband. Who is responsible for his disappearance?
In London during the WW1, Peg and her identical twin sister, Maude, fold and gather the pages of books in the Oxford printing house along with other women. The men, in a different section, edit and design the covers. Peg wants nothing more than to read the books but her job doesn’t allow her. She eagerly takes home faulty books. While her sister is content at her mundane job, Peg dreams of attending Oxford Somerville College across from the printing house, but what are the chances for a bookbinder? When refugees arrive after the German invasion of Belgium, a few of the Flemish women join the printing house. Lotte immediately draws close to Maude although Peg was assigned to assist her with the folding process. With the war going on and men leaving their jobs to join up, is there hope for Peg to work at something more challenging than her present job? When she volunteers to read and write for wounded soldiers, she meets Gwen, a privileged woman full of confidence and slowly doors open.
In 1800s China Little Flower’s father dies and her destitute mother takes to Canton and sells her into slavery to the Fong family while keeping her son. She is to be the maidservant to the spoilt Linjing. Despite the practice of foot binding, Linjing has been spared because she is destined to marry a man who does not want his wife to have bound feet. Still, she is jealous of Little Flower whose mother bound her feet at four. Little Flower is an accomplished embroider and Linjing is jealous of the attention her mother pays to the muizai’s skills. At each turn, Linjing destroys Little Flower’s hope of ever being free. Can she ever break free from the confinement and humiliation of being a slave with Linjing quelling goals?
This is an engrossing story encompassing the hardships and narrow lives of all women in a China dominated by privileged men, but a deeper concern, is other woman.
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