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When the Captain find us stowaways and give us the choice between join the island or join the crew, all of us to a man cry island! island! So he put us ashore with a few provisions and a trypot and sail away. After escaping from the Norfolk Island penal colony on a sealing ship, Bloodworth and his three fellow convicts are left on a remote southern island by a captain who promises to pick them up in a year’s time. It will be many years before they see another ship. During that time four men, with nothing in common but a desire to escape and a need to survive, live together in cramped and freezing isolation. Slangam believes hard work will see them through, Toper puts his faith in the Divine, Gargantua leans on his learning and Bloodworth watches – both his fellow felons and the inhospitable environment. Based on the true story of four convicts who spent more than nine years on the Snares Islands in the early nineteenth century, Charlotte Randall’s latest novel is a riveting, intelligent and powerful work of fiction. Also available as an eBook 2014 New Zealand Post Book Awards Fiction Pize finalist

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