Historical fiction

Orphan Rock Dominique Wilson: Transit Lounge, $33

Bessie, reclaimed by her father from a Parramatta orphanage one Saturday morning, goes home to her mother, but not as she dreamt it. The woman is cool, distant and uninterested and Bessie, trying to please, assumes a position just above the servants. When she marries, life doesn’t get much better but salvation comes with a job, working at journal The Dawn, and the realisation that even as a woman in Sydney in the late 1880s, there can be more to life than misery and servitude. Later, her daughter Kathleen leaves for Paris – Wilson, an Adelaide writer is French Algerian by birth – and ends up trapped there by war. Rich in historical detail, it focuses on the myriad fights women faced trying to make their way in the world. PENELOPE DEBELLE