num_pages: 334
description: The Orange Prize-winning author Kate Grenville recalls her family's history in an astounding novel about the pioneers of New South Wales. Already a best seller in Australia, The Secret River is the story of Grenville's ancestors, who wrested a new life from the alien terrain of Australia and its native people. London, 1806. William Thornhill, a Thames bargeman, is deported to the New South Wales colony in what would become Australia. In this new world of convicts and charlatans, Thornhill tries to pull his family into a position of power and comfort. When he rounds a bend in the Hawkesbury River and sees a gentle slope of land, he becomes determined to make the place his own. But, as uninhabited as the island appears, Australia is full of native people, and they do not take kindly to Thornhill's theft of their home.The Secret River is the tale of Thornhill's deep love for his small corner of the new world, and his slow realization that if he wants to settle there, he must ally himself with the most despicable of the white settlers, and to keep his family safe, he must permit terrifying cruelty to come to innocent people.
language: English
title: The Secret River
titlecomplete: The Secret River
characters: Ningali Lawford-Wolf, Kate Grenville
genres: Historical, Literature, School, Literary Fiction, Novels, Book Club, Australia, 19th Century, Historical Fiction, Fiction
ratings_count: 22345
places: Australia, New South Wales, Dhirrumbim, New South Wales
series: Thornhill Family
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: New South Wales Premier's Literary Award
category: Christina Stead Prize for Fiction & Community Relations Commission Award, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Miles Franklin Literary Award, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Australian Booksellers Association Book of the Year, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Commonwealth Writers' Prize
category: Best Book Overall, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Australian Book Industry Award (ABIA)
category: Literary Fiction and for Book of the Year, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Nita B. Kibble Literary Award
publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd