While resisting eviction from the Queensland family property, Emma's father is shot dead at the start of the Great Depression. With a crippled mother and twelve-year-old twin brothers to care for, young Emma is forced to work as a seamstress. A rich Sydney lawyer, Stephen Fairchild, falls passionately in love with her; but their very different social situations and Stephen's foolish involvement with the para-military New Guard oblige him to enter a loveless marriage, abandoning Emma at her moment of greatest need. But Emma is not easily defeated.
'The Light Horseman's Daughter' offers a panoramic view of Australia in the thirties - the big landowners of the outback, the corrupt bankers who supported them, the wealthy elite of Sydney's Eastern suburbs, the battlers of Redfern and the bush, the idealists who joined the international Brigade in the Spanish Civil War.
David Crookes weaves all this into a riveting story with the human element at its heart. Emma McKenna is a heroine to remember.
