Susan Mason, the child of an Irish convict and his wife, was uneducated but streetwise and canny. From colonial Adelaide to the barracks towns of the British Isles, she fought her way, sometimes literally, through life. One man called her a little whore. Her husband once accused her of being a drunkard. Life often dealt her a poor hand. Yet she managed to survive the poverty of her childhood, the indignities of being an army wife and the joys and tragedies of being a mother with her fighting spirit intact. In following her story and that of her family, the author reveals not only the complexity of Susan's character, but also what life was like for women on the edges of society in the Victorian era.