A beautiful, vividly written, historical murder mystery based around the lives of a group of the 30,000 convict women shipped to Australia in the 1840s. The inspiration for this story came from a 3m sq quilt, called The Rajah Quilt, created by these women and consisting of 2,815 hand sown patchworks! Weaving death, love and adventure the evocative story will transport you to the sun-baked decks of the convict ship Rajah and into the lives of these extraordinary women.
'The day was dove grey, and silk. A melancholic cloth that whispered and rustled. Who could say what it foretold.' Dublin, 1840: Rhia Mahoney watches in despair as her father's linen warehouse goes up in flames. Her family is ruined. Her imagined future, full of pattern and colour, plum brocades and beetle-green taffeta, crumbles to ashes. Seeking work as a governess in dismal London, Rhia's life is changed beyond all imagination when her uncle, a shipping merchant, commits suicide. Rhia cannot - will not - believe he would take his own life, but before she can investigate, she is accused of a crime she didn't commit, and forced to board a prison ship bound for New South Wales. The voyage is one of dry biscuits and endless sea, made bearable by the women's daily chore: to sew scraps of cloth into an elaborate quilt. What Rhia does not realise is that with every stich, she binds herself closer to a journey of discovery that will not end in Australia ...Weaving death, love and adventure into a vivid tale of the world at the height of Empire, The Silver Thread is plotted like a murder mystery, but narrated with the skill and style of a literary storyteller.
'Kylie Fitzpatrick's new novel is impressively researched and closely imagined. An exciting, spirited and ambitious tale.' Andrew Miller, Costa-award winning author of Pure
Author
About Kylie Fitzpatrick
Kylie Fitzpatrick is a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, and tutors on the Creative Writing degree course there. Her previous two historical novels have been published in ten languages.
