The Captive Wife

Betty Guard was fourteen when Jacky Guard, a former convict turned whaler, made her his wife and took her to his whaling station in New Zealand. Several years later, the couple and their two children is sailing home after a trip to Sydney when their ship runs aground on the coast below Mount Taranaki. A fight with local Māori follows and Betty and the children are taken prisoner. Jacky leaves to raise a ransom, but comes back instead with Royal Navy vessels, in England's first armed clash with Māori. Freed by force after four months, Betty reaches Sydney in 1834 to a heroine's welcome, yet among the raw town's governing elite, questions about her time with the tribe begin to circulate. Drawn from real events, the novel follows a marriage, the pull between love and obligation, and a woman's search for freedom.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Length

368 pages in the original

Genres

Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

New Zealand, Australia, 1830s

First published

2005 by Vintage

Author's age

65 when first published

ISBN

9781869416867 (Vintage, New Zealand)

9781776950706 (Penguin Books, New Zealand)

More

Wikidata