Coldwater

by Mardi McConnochie

Nominated by:

• State Library of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

Publisher of Nominated Edition: Doubleday ISBN 0385502605

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Wolf live on Coldwater, a penal colony off the coast of Australia, where their father, Captain Wolf, rules the household with the same unyielding sternness he imposes on the inmates. The young women rarely venture beyond their corner of the island and meet no one but the prison guards. Their imaginations, however, know no boundaries, and together the three conjure up complex and magical lands. They vow to become novelists, dreaming of literary fame and of lives far from the harsh desolation of Coldwater.
As governor of the convict island, Captain Wolf is working on a masterpiece of his own - the perfect prison. His theories of prison management have proven remarkably effective: during his tenure, not one prisoner has escaped. The arrival of an unusual convict from famine-stricken Ireland seems an opportunity to create a model prisoner - until one of his daughters becomes obsessed with the handsome young man and the delicate balance the family has constructed is shaken beyond repair. This novel grew from the author's lifelong curiosity about the Brontë sisters and their classic novels. Told through the eyes of the Wolf sisters it is a portrait of the love and fear, the trust and betrayal, and the potential for freedom in one extraordinary family.