Kate Grenville - Australian Author - Official Web Site

The Lieutenant is the second book in a trilogy of novels by Kate Grenville about early Australia (the others are The Secret River - for details see elsewhere on this site - and a third novel in progress).

Lieutenant Daniel Rooke sails into Sydney Cove with the First Fleet, hoping to advance his career.  Instead his life is unimaginably changed.

A young Aboriginal girl visits and begins to teach him her language. As they learn to speak together, they build a rapport that bridges the gap between their dangerously different worlds.  Then Rooke is given a command that forces him to choose between his duty as a soldier and the friendship that's become so precious to him.

Inspired by the First Fleet notebooks of William Dawes, The Lieutenant is about a unique moment when one world engaged with another, and the two remarkable individuals who found ways to share understanding.