Author Visit with Tea Cooper

Join Australian author Tea Cooper at Muswellbrook Library as she shares her latest book, ‘The Talented Mrs Greenway’.

Bookings essential. Contact Muswellbrook Library on 6543-1913 to book.

Tea Cooper is an established Australian author of contemporary and historical fiction. In a past life she was a teacher, a journalist and a farmer. These days she haunts museums and indulges her passion for storytelling. She is the internationally bestselling author of several novels, including most recently The Naturalist’s Daughter; the USA Today-bestselling The Woman in the Green Dress; The Girl in the Painting; The Cartographer’s Secret, winner of the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award; and The Fossil Hunter.

1814 Sydney Town

When Mary Greenway, freshly arrived from the old country, steps into the maelstrom of Sydney Town with her three children and high hopes of a new beginning, despite having little money and a husband in irons. After all, the sudden death of her sadistic first husband has meant freedom from her gilded cage and Francis Greenway is an architect of some promise, recommended by none other than Admiral Phillip himself.

Mary is a woman of great resources and an even greater creative passion, a passion that will surely burn through anything that the filthy, burgeoning, vitality of colonial Sydney can throw at her. Soon ensconced in a tiny cottage in George Street, Mary sets about moulding a life for her family from the unpromising clay of Sydney Town, with a determination fired in equal parts by guilt for her disastrous past action and a desire to realise her true calling.

When she is befriended by Elizabeth Macquarie it seems that fate is smiling on them and the promise of a better life is within her grasp. But fate is a difficult mistress and she has past secrets to keep, current betrayals on the brink of discovery and the stakes are higher than ever. With Mary’s grip on this new life slipping, will the past come back to haunt her?