Strangerland: A Family at War

In 1834, 24-year-old Isabella Campbell left England for India, and within two weeks of joining her brother in Bengal had married his best friend, Charles Gascoyne, a dashing cavalry officer in the East India Company. Twenty years later, Charles decreed that the family was to embark on a new life in a nascent British colony on the other side of the worldNew Zealand. Isabella, who had been unwell, was sent back to England, while Charles went ahead with their nine children and their governess. When Isabella joined them a year later, she found the governess had taken over both the household and Charles heart. Now, 150 years on, Helena Drysdale has woven together the facts and fabric of the Gascoynes life to create an engrossing, intimate map of one familys journey. Strangerland is, indeed, a story of love and betrayal.