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Mrs. M

Description: From one of Australia's foremost journalists, Luke Slattery, comes a bravura literary achievement, a rich and intense novel of an imagined history of desire, ambition and dashed dreams, and a portrait of one passionate, unforgettable woman - Elizabeth Macquarie. Elizabeth Macquarie, widow of the disgraced former Governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, is in mourning - not only for her husband, but the loss of their shared dream to transform the penal colony into a bright new world. Over the course of one long sleepless night on the windswept isle of Mull, she remembers her life in that wild and strange country; a revolution of ideas as dramatic as any in history; and her dangerous alliance with the brilliant, mercurial Francis Greenway, the colony's maverick architect. A stirring, provocative and thrilling novel of passion, ideas, reforming zeal and desire.'In this moving, intricate novel, Luke Slattery does more than reveal these multifaceted historical figures - Macquarie, Elizabeth and convict architect Francis Greenaway - and the complex vectors of love between them. He brings to life the radical moral largeness at the founding of Australia - a vision often forgotten under the brutality of the convict and dispossession narratives. The Macquaries fought for emancipation, fairness, and forgiveness as crucial components of justice, in the face of the cramped and brutal British vision for this place. Those dreams had their price, but we benefitted hugely from their legacy and - in our age of econocrats and technocrats - are grateful to be reminded of them. Every love story has at its heart a vision of inherent human worth in the beloved; Slattery's achievement is to render, subtly and powerfully both a human love story, and a love story to the nation.' Anna Funder, author of All That I Am'A remarkable early