"A Room Made of Leaves" by Kate Grenville

An audio book

She was born on a farm in Devon. After her father died and her mother remarried, so moved in with a friend, Bridie, a reverend's daughter. She became pregnant thanks to a soldier who she then married. She was clever and plain. He was erratic, loveless, obsessed with honour, and in debt. Their sex was mechanical. She learned that other bored wives had affairs.

In 1789 they moved to Sydney - 1000 people: convicts, soldiers, aboriginies, and a risk of famine. She learns to be socially cunning, runs a Salon, has an affair with a loner, making love outside.

He makes money from importing rum, etc. Thanks to her husband's bureaucratic scheming, they get 100 acres of land. The indigenous people (to whom she's sympathetic) burn the crops of neighbours. They have children, some of whom survive. They cross breeds to produce successful sheep - good for wool anyway. He's often away. She's the de facto boss.

Finally it's 40 years later. He's been away off and on for 14 of those years. She's happier alone.

"yet she was a good woman. And so was her husband" is maybe a typo.

Other reviews

• Kirsten Tranter (Most striking is the way Grenville makes images startlingly fresh that ought to be worn out with use.)
• Kerrie Davies (Grenville’s imaginary memoir of Elizabeth slips into the space between hoax and history, the paradox of purporting to be true while declaring it is not. Grenville openly plays with memoir’s “autobiographical pact”, where the reader unquestionably accepts an autobiography as truth.)