Of Angels and Eagles

Garth is an historical fiction trilogy, 3 novels based upon the lives of 5 generations of the Garth family. It begins with four convicts, three transported on the First Fleet and one on the Second, from England to Port Jackson, then to Norfolk Island and later to Tasmania and beyond. The tale of the Garths provides an insight into the lives of pioneers in early post 1788 Australia and the growth of a nation. You will experience with them their fears, anticipation, joy and sadness as they discover what makes them who they are. The story tells of how their lives became entwined, of the struggles and accomplishments of those initial four souls and their descendants over 138 years, from 1783 to 1921. The names, dates and major events are either true or based upon truth. Their stories are those of ordinary people, sometimes in extra-ordinary situations. Their triumphs and tragedies, their loves and their losses are real. Book 1 Of Angels and Eagles: In the early years of the industrial revolution London was expanding rapidly, poverty was increasing and merely existing was a challenge for the lower classes who too often fell foul of the ruthless criminal laws of the time. The city was full of unemployable wretches living in deplorable conditions and they were looked upon as disrupting the lives of the upper classes. Some of the lower classes were more fortunate than others, they had jobs but even they could fall victim to greedy opportunists. This is the setting into which four souls were cast; Edward the farm-boy, Susannah the prostitute, Jacob the silk weaver and Ann the urchin. Convicted of their alleged crimes, they suffered in London's notorious prisons until their transportation across the oceans to the bottom of the world, to the Great South Land. Circumstance conspired to bring them all together, to an improbable location, as distant from their imaginations as the likelihood of inhabiting the moon or the stars. Susannah, spirited and optimistic, inspires the others as they make their lives on Norfolk Island, the place of Angels and Eagles.