Under the Acacia Trees

Dr. Thaddeus Bennett and his friend Father Gregory Mayhew sail to New South Wales in 1806 to establish a church and a medical practice. The tiny area known as Wahroonga, some thirty miles north of Sydney, is where they settle. The work soon becomes overwhelming, when an orphanage for half-caste aboriginal children is added to the church, and Dr. Bennett's medical clinic grows crowded with patients. Bennett advertises in England and Canada in 1816 for a nurse. She arrives in 1818 in the person of Miss Ella Fielding. She is educated, refined, and beautiful, not at all what the vicar and doctor expected. The young Dr. Bennett is immediately besotted with Miss Fielding. But can she adjust to this new land of convicts, peculiar and often dangerous animals, and seemingly savage native people?