An historical, pastoral, satirical, scientifical romance, with mustelids.

A young man out poaching. A beautiful maiden in a mysterious house. A perilous voyage to distant islands. All the ingredients of a highly coloured Victorian romance are played out in the context of the great colonial experiment.Exotic species travelled back to stock the collections of Europe while useful species were dispatched to found new colonies in the antipodes. Walter Allbones really existed. So did his ferrets. From these facts, Fiona Farrell has spun a delicate, satirical fantasy about human folly and the perils attendant on disturbing the subtle balance of nature.

“A fun and lighthearted romance—with lots of ferrets.” —Publishers Weekly

Genre/Category: literary fiction



North American rights, St. Martin's Press
World (excl. North America), Random House New Zealand

For all other rights contact The Cooke Agency.

A highly versatile writer known for award-winning short fiction, plays and novels, Fiona Farrell was born in Oamaru, New Zealand, in 1947 and educated in Otago and Toronto, Canada, where she wrote her thesis on T S Eliot and poetic drama. Her short fiction has won every major New Zealand short story award including the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Memorial Award, the American Express Award and the Mobil-Dominion Sunday Times Award. She has received numerous other awards including the inaugural Bruce Mason Playwrights’ Award, the Mobil Award for Best Radio Drama and the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction. Her novel The Hopeful Traveller (2002) was runner-up in the 2003 Deutz Medal for Fiction and was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.