Robert James Lawler

Lured onto the Albert Dock when eleven years old by his fascination for the ocean and the ships that sail upon it, William Scarff will go to sea in search of a life away from the drudgery of working leather in his father's shop in Liverpool. His voyages take him around the world, bringing high adventure, a lifelong friendship and tragedy. Set in the middle of the nineteenth century this is the tale of a boy who survives the perils of the sea, the dangers of war, the lust for gold and emerges from it all as a man. A man 'of sterling worth' searching for love and a home.

Separated by a harsh system of justice designed by the privileged few to rid England of the unfortunate and unprivileged many, Jane and Samuel are yet destined to live out their lives side by side.Set in the nineteenth century in England and the penal colony of New South Wales, Side by Side is the tale of a young woman's struggle to break free from the shackles society has placed upon her. For her first love, Samuel, it is a tale of misfortune.

When James Lawler sees his family, his friends and his very way of life threatened by the Potato Famine in Ireland in the 1800s, he takes a gamble and places his wife and his young family on a ship bound for the colony of New South Wales in distant Australia.It is a choice that will change his life forever. In Australia nothing looks familiar. James is a farming man, and those skills take him deep into the Australian bush, to frontier country, where life becomes an extraordinary struggle against the unforgiving Australian landscape.James' ambition is to see his family settled and safe on land they can call their own, but what lengths must he go to see that dream become a reality?