Miss Ada Carmichael and her family are immigrating to Australia on the Black Swallow. Tom Darley is a member of the crew. They are about to become the only two survivors of a tragic shipwreck, and turns them into national darlings.
But Ada doesn’t want to be a national darling.
She wants to escape, hide, and stay hidden. She’s had bad experiences with the press, and knows how the newspapers twist the truth for their own ends. Tom Pearce has ambitions that mean he wants to court the press—especially when someone offers him his dream.
It’s an original and well-plotted story, with twists, turns, and hidden depths.
There are also hidden depths in the characters, and it’s wonderful to see Ada change and mature as the story progresses. This is definitely Ada’s story: she is the one with the most hurts in her past, and she is the one who has to find the strength to move past those hurts and transform … much like the silkworms she nurtures.
I’m always a fan of well-researched historical fiction that’s true to the timeframe and has a link to a historical event. As the Author Note at the end of Carry Me Away shows, Dorothy Adamek has done her research, and has seamlessly incorporated several real-live events into her story. There really was a shipwreck and ther really were only two survivors. There really was a court case about a betrothal, a local lady did raise silkworms, and and there a Chinese hawker supplied the residents of Phillip Island with tea and spices.
As such, Carry Me Away is a treat for fans of authentic historical fiction, with an original plot, likeable characters, and beautiful writing.
Thanks to the author for providing a free ebook for review.
About Dorothy Adamek
Australian author, Dorothy Adamek, writes Displacement Fiction ~ the stories of people upended by trauma and tragedy, and the struggle to belong in their new worlds. Couched in romance, her fiction is set in the late Victorian era.
Author of the Blue Wren Shallows trilogy, she lives at Crabapple House in Melbourne with her Beloved and their three children, twenty fruit trees and Gilbert the Cat.
A graduate of La Trobe University, Dorothy studied Literature, History and Education. She taught secondary school English and English As A Second Language. She loves black and white floors, collects blue and white china, and makes apricot jam every summer.
Her favourite holiday destination is Phillip Island, the real life setting of the Blue Wren Shallows trilogy.
Find Dorothy Adamek online at:
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About Carry Me Away
Inspired by the incredible true story of an Australian shipwreck and those who survived to tell the tale.
When the Black Swallow sinks off the Australian coast in 1877, Australian midshipman Tom Darley rescues English passenger Ada Carmichael from the disaster that claims her entire family. News of the only two survivors enchants the world, but Ada needs to hide before secrets and old foes find her. Tom is chasing big dreams of a crumbling house he will convert into a small hotel ~ but the promising start he’s acquired now sits at the bottom of the sea.
Inexplicably entangled, Ada and Tom lean upon each other to make sense of the tragedy that’s displaced them. But when scheming journalists observe their affection they drag Tom into life-altering riches and a news-worthy romance he cannot resist. So he arranges for Ada’s protection where only he might find her ~ the quiet Phillip Island farm of his friends Shadrach and Finella Jones.
And that’s where real trouble finds them. When heroic promises fail to shelter, and love refuses to be silenced, only surrender will pluck Ada and Tom from where life has wrecked them.
Read the introduction to Carry Me Away below:
