Twelve-year-old Nellie O'Neill lost her entire family - mother, father, and three younger siblings - to the famine in Ireland. After that, she had to live in a horrible workhouse, but now she has the chance for a new life. Nellie has arrived in Australia with a group of other Irish orphan girls, who are to work as maidservants.

At first, Nellie is worried that she will not be chosen to work as a servant, or that if she is, her employer will be cruel to her. However, Nellie is lucky, because she is chosen to work for a kind woman who runs a boardinghouse. For the first time in her life Nellie has her own room, and unlike in Ireland, there is plenty of food. But can her good fortune last?

I enjoyed the books I read in the Our Australian Girl series last year so I was happy when I found out there would be two new sets of books released this year. This series is a lot like the American Girls series, but set in Australia. Each character lives during a different time and place in Australian history and her story is told in a four book series. Although this book was not my favorite from the series (my favorite books so far were the stories about Grace, a young convict girl in 1808), I enjoyed reading Nellie's story and look forward to reading the other three books about her, which will be published later this year. ( )