Shifting currents : a novel / Joanna Orwin.

"It is 1853. Widowed Lydia Boulcott has remarried, hoping to escape her shameful past. An isolated new life in the kauri forests of New Zealand's Far North offers the chance of a respectable future for her and her five-year-old daughter, Hannah. To her dismay, Lydia discovers that one of her few neighbours is none other than ambitious Eliza Noakes - someone from her past who has the power to reveal her guilty secrets to the world. But, despite Lydia's best efforts, fate constantly throws them together. Inspired by the intertwined lives of two real women, and set against the fast-changing and challenging world of remote pioneer New Zealand, award-winning writer Joanna Orwin's superbly written new novel tells a gripping and touching story of struggle, love and unlikely friendship." -- Back cover.