Strangerland

by Helena Drysdale

In 1834, twenty-four-year-old Isabella Campbell left England for India, and within two weeks of joining her brother in Bengal had married his best friend. A dashing cavalry officer in the East India Company, Charles Gascoyne swept his young wife on a tour of garrisons, hill stations and vast military cavalcades, to battlefields and beyond. But after the birth of her ninth baby, Isabella fell ill, and Charles insisted the family should leave India. Not rich enough to buy land back Home, instead he persuaded her they should embark on a new life a pioneers in a nascent British colony on the other side of the world: New Zealand. For the sake of her health, Isabella was sent back to England, while Charles went ahead with the children and their governess. When Isabella joined them a year later she found that far from being welcomed, the governess had taken over both the household and Charles's heart. Buried in the bush, they were soon mired in scandal and a power struggle that would tear the