It is January, 1851 and the Fry Family has been in the northern tablelands of New South Wales for nearly a decade. With a little timber cottage on 320 acres and a small but successful sheep run for income, Josiah and Mary's only concern is for their children's futures. Soon, their growing family will be too large to live from the proceeds of five hundred sheep alone, but the colony at large is currently beset with native wars, gold fever and increasing bushranger activity. In order to provide their children with a future at Josiah's Plain, they decide to build a small township at the edge of their landholding and invite people of their own choosing to live alongside of them.As plans for the township develop and work begins, one of the children is badly injured in a fall, a fire-and-brimstone evangelist visits with dire consequences, and Mary is faced with a long and heart rending separation from two of her children. As floods threaten both life and livelihood, it will take all of the Fry Family's combined strength and courage to overcome the obstacles that both man and nature throw at them, and see their township come to fruition.In a country determined to obliterate the stain of its convict past and become an upright Victorian society, the encroaching stricture of religious control affects man, woman and child. Josiah and Mary's battle to keep their family together as the new social order threatens their lifestyle and their children's innocence is a difficult one. In the end, it is neither the church nor the government that lays the greatest threat at their feet - it is instead one of members of their new township!The second book in The Fry Family Series takes the reader deeper into the fascinating world of 19th century Australian settlement and the fortunes of one family. Australian Historical Fiction at its most honest and compelling!