When Times Were Tough - the title tells it all as the story is set in the late 1700s, when times certainly were tough for most during that period of history. The story depicts life as it was during those harsh and often cruel times while travelling from one side of the world to the other.

The story commences in a seaport in the south of England, Portsmouth, where Elizabeth, a teenager, was living with her parents, a surgeon and his wife. Elizabeth had just completed her private home education and family circumstances altered to the point that a family change was thought essential. Elizabeth spied a newspaper story regarding the gathering of ships for the First Fleet to New South Wales, Australia, which she showed to her parents. Her father was experiencing difficulties at his surgery and was convinced a fresh start in a far-off place may be the answer.

While Elizabeth and her family were considering joining the fleet, Richard, a Marine, was finding his military situation untenable, and the opportunity arose that allowed him to join the same fleet but on a different ship. He joined the Alexander, a ship which carried some two hundred convicts out of the fleet's total of eight hundred, all sentenced to transportation to the new colony.

The fleet took an eventful eight months to reach Australia when it finally sailed into Botany Bay. This long voyage is not included in this novel. Two weeks after arriving at their destination, one of the fleet's ships, HMS Supply, was ordered to sail to Norfolk Island, a tiny island over one thousand miles east of the mainland, with a small band of twenty-two to settle the island.

Elizabeth and Richard first meet on the Supply, and slowly, a relationship commences while the settlers toiled to make the island their home. The island, in all its beauty, is featured in the last few chapters when Elizabeth's parents finally agree to Richard coming into her life. The story finishes with them both sitting on the lush grass overlooking the royal blue of the Pacific Ocean while white fairy terns swoop and dive above them.