Between Scotland and Botany Bay two incarcerated young womena century apartare united by crimein this brilliant novel from the awardwinning author Nick Hornby Jennifer Maybee is in solitary confinement imprisoned for an undisclosed crime Deprived of companionship and driven desperate by grim routine she has only memory and imagination for escape But she isnt the first in her family to be convicted of a crime Ever since she was a young girl Jennifer has been fascinated with stories about her cousin Peggy A century before Peggy was a desperate young mother tried convicted and deported to the penal colony of Botany Bay in Australia All for the theft of a peacock Just imagine the degradation she suffered to possess a thing of beauty Jennifer does Jennifer remembers what she herself longed to possess too He was a jazz musician thirty years her senior whom she met one Christmas in Scotlandand whose fleeting attention sparked in her an obsessive unyielding and dangerous passion Now as Jennifer and Peggys parallel lives unfold love stories are woven from squalid obsessions memories collide with the truth and Jennifers longheld secrets will be revealed as she struggles with her fate and the storied one of a woman long lost to history In Lesley Glaisters enormously enjoyableNick Hornby Digging to Australia Jennifer Maybee was first introduced as a girl frighteningly adroit at inflicting pain on those close to herLos Angeles Times The consequences arise in Partial Eclipse where everyone seems to be set on selfdestruct blindly chasing after the wrong dream or man or peacock The Independent