The Pearlmistresses of Broome

Broome, Western Australia, in the late monsoon season between the wars. The pearling industry is in decline, the Depression has set in, and news of Japan’s growing power is reaching a town built on a fragile racial hierarchy. Two murders have just shaken the port. Yui Tanaka, a Japanese investor in pearl luggers, is under suspicion. Martha Lawrence, an Irish pioneer and midwife, is out of money and about to ask Yui for a loan, putting up her husband’s old lugger as collateral. Their children, who sit side by side in class, each want the opposite of what their mothers have planned for them.