Daughters of Mars

‘A masterpiece.’
A.N. WILSON

In the tradition of Atonement and Birdsong, The Daughters of Mars follows the Durance sisters as they leave Australia to nurse on the front during WWI and discover a world beyond their imaginings.

Inspired by the journals of Australian nurses who gave their all to the Great War effort and the men they nursed, The Daughters of Mars is vast in scope yet extraordinarily intimate. A stunning tour de force to join the best First World War literature, and one that casts a penetrating light on the lives of women caught in the great mill of history.

Naomi and Sally Durance are daughters of a dairy farmer from the Macleay Valley. Bound together in complicity by what they consider a crime, when the Great War begins in 1914 they hope to submerge their guilt by leaving for Europe to nurse the tides of young wounded.

They head for the Dardanelles on the hospital ship Archimedes. Their education in medicine, valour and human degradation continues on the Greek island of Lemnos, then on the Western Front. Everywhere they are confronted by new outrages – gas, shell-shock and broken men.

Naomi encounters the wonderful, eccentric Lady Tarlton, who is founding a voluntary hospital near Boulogne; Sally serves in a casualty clearing station close to the front. They meet the men with whom they would wish to spend the rest of their lives.

An extraordinary portrait of two ordinary young women.

Format: Paperback
Pages: 608
Imprint: Penguin Books AU
Publication date: 13/02/2024