Sarah Butterworth grows up in Northern England amid the harrowing conditions of the Great Depression and World War II. Though surrounded by the bleak backdrop of Manchester's slums, Sarah's innate optimism, her vibrant Lancashire family and her attraction to David, the enigmatic boy next door, make life bearable for Sarah. But when tragedy strikes and David is sent away to an orphanage, Sarah's world is changed forever.
In the years which follow, the world goes to war, and Sarah finds her pacifist convictions only deepening. But in a world now filled with soldiers, she wonders if the cost of holding those convictions will be her chance to ever find true love.
Filled with colourful characters who face adversity with courage and humour, Sarah's Journey is an inspiring historical novel that looks at WWII through the unusual lens of a pacifist. And, while it begins in the rainy, industrial north of England, it ends in the sundrenched Australian outback, where Sarah hopes to begin a new life...and find true fulfillment at last.
About the Author: Born in the slums of Northern England during the Great Depression, Dorothy Ainsworth left school at age thirteen to work in a factory to provide money for her family. Her harrowing experiences during the bombing of Manchester in WWII deepened her pacifist beliefs. She eventually met and married Derek, a man who shared her convictions, and in the early 1950s, with just £100 and their first child on the way, the two set sail for a new life in Australia under the £10 Passage Scheme.
Ainsworth now lives on the Australian Gold Coast in the house she shared with her late husband. She continues to hold fast to her pacifist principles and is a vegetarian and a follower of Emanuel Swedenborg.
Sarah's Journey is Ainsworth's fictional account of her life, from her wartime childhood in England to her adventures as a young immigrant wife and mother in 1950s Australia.
