The Beckoning Shore: E.V. TimmsBook III of The Great Southland Saga. In 1836 Elizabeth Holley, an innocent, gentle parson's daughter, arrives in Sydney Town, a settlement rife with brutality, crime and drunkenness. Alone and almost penniless, she has already faced the terror of a storm at sea and now must survive in a world very different from the sleepy English village she grew up in. Within hours of arriving she has to contend with the swindlers and cheats of Sydney's low life.