Transported

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 certaintinty, the heartbreaking decisions of parenthood and the strength of true love.