In this richly human historical romance, The Lyrebird Brooch, young Mathilda, the daughter of German migrants, wants to escape the stifling paternal structure of hard work and obedience that controls her family life in a Lutheran fruit-growing community near Melbourne in the late 1880s. While jeweller Wilhelm Lund provides an avenue to a new life in marriage, good fortune still remains out of reach for the young couple. The well-off folk of Beechworth hesitate to patronize his shop. As his shop flirts with bankruptcy, Will must take drastic action to keep his family solvent.

Can Will and Mathilda reconcile domestic frugality with their tender burgeoning love? Neither they, nor the colony of Victoria, have anticipated the tragedy that the coming financial crash of 1893 will bring to their lives.

Mathilda makes one terrible error that will challenge the survival of her small family. But, as women around her start to fight for their rights in the suffragette movement, Mathilda realizes that ultimately only she can determine the direction her future will take.