Finding Fiona: Coming of Age in Colonial Australia

Jeanne McNamara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1493606921 ISBN 13: 9781493606924

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

A YOUNG GIRL'S COMING OF AGE IN COLONIAL AUSTRALIA: Motherless and raised by their father, Dr. Charles Allen, Fiona and her younger brother, Ainsley, spend their days on the family farm at Parramatta in the British penal colony of New South Wales, Australia. The year is 1819, and Fiona must learn to sew and keep house like an English lady, while Ainsley does school lessons with his tutor. Both Fiona and Ainsley prefer riding around the bushland surrounding their home as they search for the unique wildlife that Ainsley is eager to sketch. Kyle Sutherland - a young convict sent to Australia for a political crime - is assigned to work at their farm as a shepherd, and Fiona is instantly charmed by the young Scot, despite their differing social status. But when family secrets are revealed, followed by an unexpected tragedy, will Fiona's plans and dreams change forever? "Australia's penal colony origin provides a solid backdrop for this lively, emotional story about family secrets and social status. Fiona's father, a widower, wants to raise his daughter as a proper young lady. As for her brother, Ainsley, ("too pretty to be a boy") his passion for capturing the young country's flora and fauna in drawings disappoints his domineering father, who insists drawing is a pastime for ladies......The author's depiction of the restrictions of class and the benefits of privilege in colonial Australia add heft to a competently told historical romance." ---Publishers Weekly Reviewer "Finding Fiona" is the prequel to Jeanne McNamara's novel, "Caitlin's Country"; but also stands on its own as the story of a young girl's coming of age in the nineteenth century.

About the Author:

Jeanne McNamara was born in Australia to Scottish parents and now lives in Dallas, Texas. Her father's family were printers in Edinburgh and she likes to think her ancestors had something to do with her passion for the written word. "As a student," she says, "I used to read Shakespeare's plays as though they were novels." She attended the University of Queensland and has worked as a social worker and as a school administrator in Australia and the United States before concentrating on writing. Jeanne has a daughter and a son and three grandchildren, and has spent most of her life around children, so it was a natural progression for her to write for young people. "Finding Fiona" was entered in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award of 2011.