Joy’s first novel is an epic tale resonant with the spirit of a frontier land. Set in the spacious country-side of New South Wales in the 1860s when the young colony was a haven for adventurers and ‘Wild Colonial Boys’ (robbers) roamed the roads.
Eve Herman, who along with her sister Clare, finds herself an orphan in the unfamiliar and intimidating surroundings of Sydney Town’s waterfront, 7,000 miles from the land of their birth. Clare, beautiful and impressionable, soon takes the easy way to earn a living and left alone, Eve must learn to survive.
When she meets John Stuart Wakeman, Australia’s richest land-owner, a man of uncompromising morality and the philosophical, well-bred owner of the huge cattle property of MAYFIELD, he is captivated by the resilient and lovely Eve. His one desire is to make her the mistress of MAYFIELD.
It is on their wedding day that their coach is held up by Alan Fletcher, the most wanted outlaw in New South Wales; an ex Naval Sea Captain who was tricked out of his inheritance and charged with a murder he did not commit. A man who should be bitter and indignant but who instead is generous and compassionate. Sent as ‘a lifer’ on a prison ship to Australia, he escapes from a convict chain gang with his small band of loyal followers and they become ‘bushrangers’ - Australian outlaws.
This meeting in the bush reveals to Eve a secret that she must hide from her husband and it kindles the amazing course of events that forever alters the lives of Eve, Alan and John Stuart and all those around them. MAYFIELD is the study of these three extraordinary people who all search for their own truths.