The Trader’s Dream (The Traders 3)

Author/Guide: Anna Jacobs

Why a Booktrail?

1869:Bram Deagan dreams of bringing his family from Ireland to join him in Australia,

ISBN: 978-1444711325
Genre: Fiction, Historical

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What you need to know before your trail

Bram Deagan dreams of bringing his family from Ireland to join him in Australia, where he now runs a successful trading business.

But when a typhus epidemic strikes Ireland, it leaves the Deagan family decimated. And, with other family members scattered round the world, it is left to Maura Deagan to look after her orphaned nieces and nephew.

Forced to abandon her own ambitions, and unsure whether she is ready to become a mother-figure to three young children, Maura recognises that their only hope is to join Bram in far away Australia. So they set sail on the SS Delta, which will carry them there via the newly opened Suez Canal.

It is only when a storm throws her and fellow passenger Hugh Beaufort together that Maura realises this journey may also give her a chance to pursue a dream she set aside long ago – to have a family of her own. That is, until someone from Hugh’s past threatens to jeopardise everything . . .

Locations

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Ireland (Northern)
C: Enniskillen "Shilmara"

Egypt
D: Suez Canal

Travel Guide

Ireland

The home of many characters in the book. Shilmara is fictional. It is somewhere in North West Ireland. Maura moved from here to Lancashire to work at Brent House before she is given the task of looking after children and escorting them to Australia. Brent House in Lancashire is also fictional of course.

The Swan River Colony

This used to be the name for Western Australia and was a place for trade and the excitement around new methods of trade. Maura and Huge Beaufort meet on the SS Delta, one of many ships and steamers of the time to use the newly opened Suez Canal which has been built for the impressive numbers of people wanting to travel to Australia and for it not to take several months.

The excitement around this new canal is high:

“I think you must all have heard about the Suez Canal, which has just been complete so that shops can sail from the Mediterranean into the Red Sea and thence into the Indian Ocean, thus shortening the journey to the East.”

A lot of the events in the book take place on the boat and in and around the Suez Canal – with the excitement and the uncertainty of arriving and having a new life in Australia with it. Life at sea is not easy. Not by a long shot.