Partial Eclipse: A Novel

Award-winning author Lesley Glaister explores the lives of two women from different centuries, imprisoned for crimes of passion and love

Jennifer is in solitary confinement. A place where there is only “memory, imagination, and me.” She isn’t the first in her family to be convicted of a crime. Centuries earlier, one of her ancestors, the unmarried Peggy Maybee, was arrested for trying to steal a peacock so she could give its beautiful feathers to her infant son, Samuel. Peggy was tried, convicted, and deported to Botany Bay to serve her sentence. She was heartbroken at being separated from her child but awed by the savage beauty of eighteenth-century Australia.
 
As Jennifer and Peggy’s parallel lives unfold, long-held secrets are revealed, including the truth about the crime that ultimately landed Jennifer in prison.
 
Alternating between the two women’s points of view, Partial Eclipse is about love: illicit love, maternal love, and self-love. It’s also a novel about freedom and never losing hope.