A Great Act of Love – Heather Rose (2026)

“A captivating story of love and adventure, thrumming with secrets,” writes Lucy Steeds, author of The Artist. “Like a fine vintage of champagne, this novel is complex, layered, and delicious,” says Kate MacIntosh, author of The Champagne Letters. Caroline examines a stolen map and discovers, at the edge of the Western Hemisphere, a black mark on the 30th latitude smaller than a flea: Norfolk Island. Her aunt thinks she is foolish to want to follow her father to the other side of the world. He is no longer the man who taught Caroline about philosophy and apothecary and dreamed of returning to the France of his childhood. He is a convicted murderer, mad, deported and condemned. When her aunt sees that Caroline is determined, she offers one piece of advice: Caroline must leave her past behind and invent a new story. In 1839, Caroline arrives in Van Diemen’s Land as a young widow of means with a boy in her care. In this insular colony of exiles and opportunists, no one talks much about the past. Caroline leases a run-down cottage and an abandoned vineyard and, on an island of extreme seasons and wild beauty, embarks on a fearless enterprise to reclaim her father, create champagne and rewrite her family’s legacy. Travelling from Paris to Edinburgh, London, New York and Tasmania, this is an epic story of hope and self-invention.