Drovers hold an iconic place in our Australian identity, due to the courage and perseverance needed to transport cattle and sheep hundreds of kilometres through rural and outback areas. But what of the women and children who travelled with them?

'Tell us where you've got the nugget and this will go well for you,' the tall man with the horrible voice rasped. Rumour is flying around the west coast gold fields that tom McGee has struck it rich and found a nugget of gold as big as a man's fist. So no one is surprised when next his campsite is found wrecked and abandoned. Men have been killed for a lot less on the tough goldfields of 1860s New Zealand. But one person is convinced tom is not dead. His headstrong daughter, Charlotte. Solving the mystery is not her first task, though. First, she must get to the coast. A skilful horse rider, she disguises herself as a boy and joins a cattle drive across the Southern Alps. to survive the dangerous drive over Arthur's Pass and to keep her identity hidden from the vicious trail boss, she'll need the help of her dog, her horse, and her father's friend, tama. She knows she can do it - she has to - but what will she find? And will her new American friend, Joseph, help or hinder her quest? Charlie is in for the ride of her life - and the stakes couldn't be higher.

Deep in the heart of Australia’s high country, along an ancient, hidden track, lives Molly Johnson and her four surviving children, another on the way. Husband Joe is away months at a time droving livestock up north, leaving his family in the bush to fend for itself. Molly’s children are her world, and life is hard and precarious with only their dog, Alligator, and a shotgun for protection – but it can be harder when Joe’s around. At just twelve years of age Molly’s eldest son Danny is the true man of the house, determined to see his mother and siblings safe – from raging floodwaters, hunger and intruders, man and reptile. Danny is mature beyond his years, but there are some things no child should see. He knows more than most just what it takes to be a drover’s wife. One night under the moon’s watch, Molly has a visitor of a different kind – a black ‘story keeper’, Yadaka. He’s on the run from authorities in the nearby town, and exchanges kindness for shelter. Both know that justice in this nation caught between two worlds can be as brutal as its landscape. But in their short time together, Yadaka shows Molly a secret truth, and the strength to imagine a different path. Full of fury and power, Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson is a brave reimagining of the Henry Lawson short story that has become an Australian classic. Brilliantly plotted, it is a compelling thriller of our pioneering past that confronts head-on issues of today: race, gender, violence and inheritance.

Comprised of two short stories 'The Highland Widow' and 'The Two Drovers' and a novella 'The Surgeon's Daughter', this is Scott's only collection of shorter fiction. Each story is set in the second half of the eighteenth century and deals with the exodus of Scots from their post-Union, post-Culloden homeland to seek fortune elsewhere.