About the female convicts on the way to Botany Bay

This was at times hard to follow, as the author follows a lot of different women's stories at once, and there is often only a small amount of information about each one. That means that there are paragraphs full of names with very brief descriptions each time - I was expecting the book to be more of a fictionalised account about one convict, but instead it is a historical account describing what we know happened and suggesting what could have happened in the gaps based on other similar happenings at the time.
This was a particularly interesting book to be reading at the moment, as Van Nguyen is due to be hanged in Singapore for drug trafficking tomorrow morning. While I don't agree with the death penalty, when you know that only 225 years ago our ancestors were burning women at the stake for petty theft (and hanging men for the same crime) the general opinion of how terribly harsh the Singaporeans are for still hanging people seems a little hypocritical. We're not as far removed from this practice as we would like to think.
I learned a lot about conditions in England and English gaols in the 1780s from this book, and learned a lot about how Australia as a country formed. An excellent book.

RELEASE NOTES:

Released at the Melbourne Christmas meetup

This was recommended to me as a good read and I don't know how to say no to a good book! Thanks puppymummy, I will add this to Mt TBR. And thanks also for a great day today in the Alexandra Gardens.

I read this immediately after Slammerkin (a fictionalized account of the life of the real Mary Saunders, who became a 14 year old prostitute in London in the 1760's after being raped and thrown out of her family - a fantastic book).
This book seemed to be more a list of people and events rather than a good read. I think the title was a bit of a misnomer as it was less about prostitution on board the ship (two stays in port were the only times there was any real prostitution) and more about where these women came from, their journey and arrival in Botany Bay.
Life was obviously very harsh for most people in this time and penalties were extreme for minor crimes. Women had to be very strong and perhaps heartless - which probably explained the marriage in Port Jackson of Sarah Whitelam the very next day after her lover John Nichol sailed off.
Thanks for sharing puppymummy.

I agree with puppymummy, there where too many women's stories to keep track of and considering half of them had the first name Sarah - I lost track of who was who. Will release at the next meet up.

Picked up at yesterday's meetup.