Juliet and Jack thought they'd found paradise on their land deep in the wilderness of southwest Tasmania in 1876-with trout in the streams, wild deer, and vast herds of brumby horses. Then, during Jack's yearly trip to town for supplies, he disappears, and no one knows what's happened to him. Juliet struggles to survive on her own and is visited by wild aboriginal tribes on walkabout, an escaped convict brings trouble, feral dog packs create havoc, and a lost Canadian wolf befriends Juliet and saves her life and the life of a thylacine pup. Jack has been shanghaied and tries valiantly for two years to escape his captors on the whaling mothership until it is wrecked on a reef, and he is the lone survivor.