Modern-day Britain in the year 2000 has slid away from a democratic system. Australia remains a penal colony in the UK’s outright possession since 1788. Transportation with hard labour awaits all who transgress even slightly. The penalty for escape is death, yet a small but committed Resistance movement thrives. The plot follows clever, cosseted 17-year-old Matilda Watson. Her life capsizes when her elite government employee parents are unmasked as core Resistance leaders, tortured and transported. The regime restricts women and girls; all Matilda wants is to get married at 18 like the others at her private school. Overnight, however, she becomes one of the most infamous faces in Britain. Forced to leave her home, she’s abandoned to the savage flip side of the lacquered world she grew up in. Offered social rehabilitation within the regime by one man and equality on the wrong side of the law by another, Matilda is forced to question how she has been used and things she believes to be true about herself. As the chains tighten, the press descend and she learns more about her parents’ horrifying choices, risks and sacrifices, Matilda must choose for herself which side she’s on, which man she loves and how far she’s willing to go to free the Australian colony. Transported explores hope, intolerance, the fading of adolescent certaint
Kate Fitzpatrick is an Australian writer and mother, and a lifelong book lover. She works in edtech, served on the board of Surrogacy Australia and is an investor at Scale Investors, supporting female start-up founders. Kate completed the 2017 Curtis Brown six-month novel writing course in London, where she lived for six years before returning to Australia in 2018. Her background is in digital consulting and product and her short stories can be found on Storgy.com. She lives in Melbourne with her husband, daughter, dog and cat.
* Transported is a gripping speculative novel set in the year 2000, unpacking Australia and Britain’s colonial legacy through the lens of a teenage girl who is coming of age in a fractured world. Drawing on both colonial and contemporary parallels, it explores fading adolescent certainty, the moral weight of parenthood, and the quiet power of love amidst rising intolerance and political unrest. A cross between The Handmaid’s Tale and Tomorrow When the War Began, this debut will appeal to younger audiences and fans of of Charlotte Wood’s The Natural Way Of Things and Mallory Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses trilogy.
* The novel is a coming-of-age story about falling in love across class boundaries and what happens when a nation builds walls around what they fear.
* Written in 2017-2018, the novel uncannily anticipated the socio-political events of the mid-2020s. Could it be a harbinger of what’s to come?
* The narrative is immersive and immediate as the young protagonist matures, changes and contends with risk, loss, suffering and the consequences of her decisions.
* Written by a bold new voice in Australian fiction that is genre-defying, fearless and deeply relevant.
Publicity:
* A dynamic publicity campaign planned across Australia, the UK and the USA including writers’ festival appearances, book launches and media interviews.
