Maggie has already survived more than most women twice her age: losing her parents, scraping by alone on the streets of London, and saving every last coin toward a berth on the Charlotte Gladstone, bound for New Zealand. Quick with a deck of cards and quicker with her tongue, she boards ship with nothing but grit and a fierce determination that her life is finally, truly, about to change.
But New Zealand has its own plans for Maggie. A miserable posting as a domestic servant sends her fleeing for the wild, muddy chaos of the West Coast goldfields, where fortunes are made and lost overnight and a woman on her own draws every kind of attention. Will Maggie strike it rich? Will she ever have a business, and a home, to call her own? Warm, funny, and unflinching, Maggie follows an unforgettable heroine determined to claw her way to a better life on her own terms.
Perfect for fans of The Luminaries and The Colour, this novel pulses with resilience, danger, and the fierce joy of freedom hard won.