What if Elizabeth Macarthur, the wife of the notorious John Macarthur—the “father” of the wool industry—had written candid and secret memoirs? What if novelist Kate Grenville had miraculously found them and published them? That’s where the novel begins—a story poised on the edge of reality and invention. A marriage to a ruthless tyrant, a craving for power that remains inaccessible to women in society. Elizabeth Macarthur runs her life with zeal and passion, using cunning and wit.