Helen and Gary Ghent for their generosity in opening up their beautiful home on the Greek island of Symi for three months, where I completed the second draft of the manuscript.

Thanks to the Penguin Random House Australia team: the indomitable Lex Hirst, commissioning editor, whose total belief and enthusiasm for the novel helped steer me through the acquisition and contractual process, then provided inspiration in structurally revamping the plot and deepening the characters into a far more dramatic story. The meticulous Elena Gomez, deputy managing editor and copyeditor, who was always respectful of the work, making edits, comments and suggestions with humour and insight. The steadfast and sanguine Meredith Curnow, publisher of Vintage Australia, who took on a first-time author with enthusiasm and forethought.

Finally, to MG, my dear friends, my writing buddies and readers – thanks so very much for being there. And a big thanks to my loving family, who have supported me throughout, enduring all the highs and lows of wrangling words into sentences, paragraphs and chapters until they have at long last been chiselled into a novel.

Author Note

Master of My Fate began as a research project. The original intention was to merely collate information about the lives of the West Indian convicts I had discovered on the Hyde Park Barracks database so that those following behind would have a more accurate knowledge of the period. But when I started looking into why those convicts had been transported, I noticed next to one of the names, William Buchanan, the word ‘rebellion’ listed as his crime. I was curious to learn more, and my research pulled me deeper into the history of slavery and plantation life in Jamaica, but also his adventures as a bushranger, which I discovered in the newspaper articles written about his exploits.

One of the pivotal pieces of information I found was the 1817 slave register. It not only gave me an incredible amount of information, but also a list of characters around whom I could build a narrative. But I was still left with the dilemma of developing an authentic voice for the novel.