Publisher's Synopsis
Margaret Catchpole was born into a smugglers' world in Suffolk in the late 1700s. A spirited woman, famed locally for her skills as a daring horsewoman, she meets her match in Will Laud, "hell-born babe" and wanderer, with an easy knack for evading the excise men who constantly patrol the wild shingle stretches of the shoreline. As the valued servant of a wealthy family and a friend of criminals, Margaret leads a double life that will inevitably bring about her downfall, and she is sentenced to hang not once, but twice. Amazingly, she escapes the gallows and is transported with other convicts to Australia.
