Survival was only
the beginning.
England, 1866. Hundreds of passengers board the emigrant ship Netherby in Plymouth, bound for Queensland and a promised land. On 14 July, off King Island in Bass Strait, the ship strikes the rocks.
Everyone survives the wreck. But survival is only the beginning.
Ben Groom, a locksmith without colonial references, his wife Lucy and their children are cast ashore on a winter beach with hundreds of other survivors. The Queensland they came for recedes. Rescued to Melbourne, they must decide whether to continue north or begin again in Victoria. They choose Carlton, a small house and the search for work in a city where the right name, the right connections and the patience to wait still matter.
In the years that follow, as Lucy keeps a notebook and Ben rebuilds his working life, the real questions emerge: not how to endure a catastrophe, but how to live in its aftermath. Who is believed. Whose name is spelled correctly. What a promise actually contains.
A novel about class, migration and the precise arithmetic of survival — drawn from family papers and grounded in the documented record.
Work, pride and the promise of a different life.
Care, judgement and the right to choose.
Responsibility, endurance and the search for help.
Class, privacy and an unexpected connection.
Characters as portrayed in the novel. Illustrated portraits are modern interpretations.
Who gets recorded? What does a promise bind?
People, rations, places — and what numbers miss.
Locks, knots and the things that hold.
A destination, a hope, an uncertainty.
Whose labour is seen and valued?
Who controls time, and who must obey?
Modern illustrations of the novel’s motifs. Any depicted documents are illustrative. Select an image to view it at full size.
WHERE BOUND?
The story in music. Listen here on Spotify, or choose another music service below.