Secrets from the Dust

Snatched from her family during the 1960s, Margaret, a headstrong Aboriginal girl, is fostered by the McDonalds, in the Australian outback, under the government sponsored assimilation policies. She stubbornly fights to maintain her culture until she can escape or her real parents find her. But soon she discovers that she is growing to like many of the customs and material possessions of her captors, throwing her into an identity crisis, which rips another fault line through her world.By the time she grows into a beautiful young woman, she has already suffered the disappointments of unrequited love and a forbidden desire. Encouraged to hide behind the identity of a Southern European, the highly charged political environment of the time, and her love for a political activist, forces her to confront her true identity. Word count approximately 126,000