The Secret River is the story of William Thornhill, an Englishman living at the beginning of the nineteenth century whose death sentence is commuted to transportation to Australia. Australia proves brutal to Thornhill and his family, and his relations with the native Aborigines prove bloody and bleak. Thornhill struggles to adapt to his surroundings as his fellow prisoners descend into savagery and brutal, pointless rebellion against the harsh and unforgiving country.
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