Southern SkyesSharyn Bradford Lunn's landmark saga of adventure and romance, spans almost 200 years of family history set against a backdrop of the rich and rugged wilds of Australia. In this sweeping story of love and loss, fortune and fate, this masterful storyteller recounts the journeys of the McCabe and Skye families, along with the people who shape their lives, as they strive to make good in the penal colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land during the early 1800s. The saga chronicles the two families' trials and triumphs, joys and injustices, and the inner torment as their lives come full circle and old secrets are revealed. The epic begins with the love of a soldier in the New South Wales Corps for a high-spirited convict woman, but tragedy leads him to the arms of a beautiful native woman. From these unions arise generations of proud Australians who play their part in forging the Great Southern Land. The story of these courageous men and women, their dreams, their dynasty, and the heritage they share is as unique as the land from which they sprang. Southern Skyes brings Australia's history to life with compelling characters, rendering the Australian landscape in all its rugged magnificence.The Divergence - Book Two of Southern SkyesThe Divergence continues from The Soldier's Seed, the first book of the Southern Skyes family saga, capturing the wide range of relationships between colonists, convicts, hunters and the indigenous population during the tumultuous events that defined the early penal colonies of Australia and the discovery of gold. The two young sons of Nicholas Thomas, a soldier in the New South Wales Corps, have been torn apart by circumstances beyond their control and struggle to find their own identity within their father's legacy. One son faces the beast of prejudice and unrequited love, while the other is handed everything on a platter . . . or is he? While pioneering new settlements and enterprises, each son, in his own way, resists the injustices of colonial Van Diemen's Land and witnesses the demise of a free and ancient people even as they face their individual misfortunes. Will the sons be reunited . . . and will their descendants find fortune and accept their family ties on the gold fields of mainland Australia? The Divergence reveals another poignant historical adventure in the family saga that is the Southern Skyes series.