Breakfast at Midnight

Hobart, Tasmania, 1894. From the mouldering cells of Port Arthur to the sun-dappled grounds of Wintersleigh House, Breakfast at Midnight analyses the expectations placed on young people by family members and by society as a whole. It also explores the polarised society of the mid 1890's, a time when trenchant Victorian conservatism and burgeoning feminist ideals seemed increasingly incompatible.Miss Frances Norwood's new life as a governess in Hobart begins inauspiciously when her pupil dies before she arrives, leaving Frances unemployed, with nowhere to live. With few connections and little personal fortune in a climate of economic depression and rampant unemployment, Frances has little option but to live with her Aunt Louisa Wentworth at her stately home, Wintersleigh House.With Christmas fast approaching, new and unexpected visitors arrive on the scene, including Frances's cousins, Agnes and Charlotte, local doctor Michael Brearly, and his charismatic younger brother George.The festive season of 1894, however, will bring no 'peace on earth' for the Brearly and Wentworth families, only an inevitable conflict that will drag everyone into the fray and change the family dynamics forever...From the mouldering cells of Port Arthur to the sun-dappled grounds of Wintersleigh House, Breakfast at Midnight analyses the expectations placed on young people by family members and by society as a whole. It also explores the polarised society of the mid 1890s, a time when trenchant Victorian conservatism and burgeoning feminist ideals seemed increasingly incompatible.