An impassioned, charming, and hilarious debut novel about a young woman's coming-of-age, during one of the harshest whaling seasons in history.
When the eldest daughter of a whaling family in New South Wales sets out to write about the particularly difficult season of 1908, the story she tells reveals itself to be far larger than she ever expected. As her family struggles to survive, and as she attempts to navigate sibling rivalries and all-consuming first love, nineteen-year-old Mary will soon discover a shocking side to these men who hunt the seas, and the truth of her own place among them. Swinging from Mary's own hopes and disappointments to the challenges that have beset her family's whaling operation, RUSH OH! is also a celebration of an extraordinary episode in history, when man and beast formed a unique, heartwarming allegiance.
