Three very different women: Evangeline, Hazel, and Mathinna, will become part of the story of the creation of a new society in Australia, the land beyond the seas. London, 1840. Evangeline has languished in Newgate prison for months, falsely accused of stealing her master's ring. Now beginning the long journey to Australia on a prison ship, she hopes for a new life for both her and her unborn child. On board she befriends Hazel, sentenced to seven years' transport for theft, whose own path will cross with an orphaned indigenous girl. The governor of Tasmania has 'adopted' Mathinna, but the family treat her more as a curiosity than a child. Amid hardships and cruelties, friendships will define lives, but only some will find their place on the other side of the world.