Ship’s midwife. Peta Miller. 2023.

Lives are irrevocably changed by a typhus outbreak on a cramped emigrant ship bound for Australia.

1850 Sarah Hallow is orphaned, penniless and alone, with only the skills learned from her midwife mother to guide her. Passage on a ship bound for the new settlement of Brisbane, Australia, is her last option. Though her skills are quickly dismissed by the ship's doctor, Sarah is pleased to find instant friendship with her cabinmate, Bridie, a fiery Irish girl with a sharp tongue and midwifery skills of her own.

When the two women come to the aid of a labouring woman onboard, Sarah's dreams of opening her own midwifery practice in Brisbane don't seem so impossible. Certainly not as impossible as her daydreams about the ship's doctor's son, who only seems to have eyes for her friend.

But something else is lurking on the ship: a disease that has the power to take down even the strongest man and is about to rip through the ship like wildfire, leaving only devastation in its path. As caring for patients stretches Sarah and Bridie to their absolute limit, thoughts of the future are rapidly eclipsed by their determination to survive. If only they can make it to Australia with their lives and loves intact ...