Transported

In the 21st century, Australia remains a penal colony of the United Kingdom. As the British political system slips into fascism, anyone who breaches the government’s Principles is transported. The penalty for escape is death, yet a small but committed resistance movement thrives.

Clever, cosseted, 17-year-old Matilda suddenly finds herself a ward of the state, held at Chellingford Reform School. Her parents have been unmasked as traitors, and the encroaching press will do anything to catch a glimpse of her.

Matilda is abandoned to the savage flip side of the lacquered world she grew up in. Offered social rehabilitation within the regime by one man and equality on the wrong side of the law by another, Matilda is forced to question how she has been used and things she believes to be true about herself.

As the chains tighten, the press descend and she learns more about her parents’ horrifying choices, risks and sacrifices, Matilda must choose for herself which side she’s on, which man she loves and how far she’s willing to go to free the Australian colony. Not everyone is telling the truth and only a great atrocity will prompt the international support required for a convict revolution to succeed.

A heart-stopping and thought-provoking read, Transported explores what happens when a country builds walls around the things it’s afraid of.