Cirrus@Austlit

'Secrets and lies throw three lives into chaos in the last days of the nineteenth century

Colonial Sydney in the final weeks of the 19th century: a city striving for union and nationhood but dogged by divisions so deep they threaten to derail, not just the Federation, but the colony itself. There are chasms opening too when a clandestine note reaches the wrong hands in the well-to-do household of aspiring politician Alasdair Dunleavy and his wife Eleanor. Below stairs, their maid Alice faces a desperate situation with her wayward sister.

Colourful, immediate and involving, this is the sweeping story of three people, their passions and ambitions, and the far-flung ripples their choices will cause. Despite sharing a house, Eleanor, Alice and Alasdair are each alone in their torment and must each find some solution, but at what cost to themselves and those they love?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'In London's South Kensington, in the austere years immediately following the end of the war, Mrs Harriet Wallis is convicted of the murder of her husband, Cecil, and is sentenced to death by hanging. Leading a pampered if conventional existence, the Wallises appear to have a contented life. However, when the police turn up at the front door on the day the new nanny arrives, the first of a chain of events that will culminate in Cecil's murder is begun.

'Set in a post-War period when a well-to-do British family's existence - both outside and inside the house - is ruled by a strict set of conventions, The Second-last Woman in England explores the depth of emotions that are always there in every family but rarely surface. And what happens when they do.' (From the publisher's website.)