Born prematurely in the untamed Victorian bush,
a tiny infant hovers between life and death, too weak to suckle from her mother.
Her grandmother invents a way to feed her. With patience and a determination, Juliet survives.
Raped and pregnant at fifteen, and knowing nothing of the facts of life, she is trapped in a world of ignorance. She loses her direction, and sinks into depression when her daughter is taken away.
Married off to a widower in a loveless and undesirable match, after three children she avoids her husband's bed by making hats.
Only in middle-age does she finds her true self in a way she could never have dreamed.
The hatmaker's loves a tale of tough men,
tougher women, isolation and cruelty.