Born in 1778, Kate O'Neal first learns to accept her harsh life in a large family on her father's tenant farm in Ireland, and later, her life of service with the Rustands. She learns to avoid trouble where she could, enduring it when she couldn't, until one night in 1793 when she is raped by her employer's son.
She fights back, castrating him. His family responds by having her convicted of theft and transported to Australia.
Kate survives a year-long voyage, and dreads the remaining six years of her sentence in a penal colony teeming with men, where convict women are mostly used as common whores.
Determined to survive as best she can, she first becomes Lieutenant Kendrick's convict mistress, and when he loses her in a game of cards, she ends up as Captain Spencer's 'honey pot'. Life is good, and Kate dreams of a settled future with Spencer. She is shocked when he abandons her.
Thanks to the support of a group of friends—both convict and free—her 'family of strangers', Kate faces new challenges in her life. The colony's trading community sees her as 'a female convict meddler' and works in concert to get rid of her. She battles them and wins the right to be herself—a free woman of independent means.