Journey to the River Sea

This hair-raising novel, set in turn-of-the-last-century Brazil, introduces Maia, an orphan, sent from England to live with unfamiliar cousins on a rubber plantation. As Maia and her kind governess arrive in their new home, they each have secret hopes of adventure–which are immediately quashed by the Carters, who hate their adopted land are obsessed with re-creating England in the forest, right down to the watery puddings.