Maggie is a powerful coming-of-age story about the sudden transition from childhood to adulthood, the pain of losing one’s innocence, and of rebuilding oneself to keep on surviving for at least one more day.

Set in 1960s Australia, Maggie attends a Catholic boarding school, which most of the students consider a suffocating prison, except for Maggie who sees it as a release from her troubled and broken home. Then, one morning after Mass, Maggie meets the new priest, Father Nihill. He is handsome, charming and makes her feel special and wanted – until then, she had believed she was undesirable. She is soon swept up in what she believes to be a forbidden and exciting affair. But when she unexpectedly becomes pregnant with his child, Maggie must abandon the fairytale she believes she’s been living and confront the reality that threatens to strip away the only power she has left.

Maggie, like most children, wishes to mature faster: adulthood appears golden with endless possibilities, autonomy and the freedom to be with an older man without secrecy or shame. But when Maggie is suddenly forced to grow up and raise a child all on her own, she achingly misses the times she could be with her friends or go to a school dance without the fear that her teacher is nearby and watching. Her dreams of studying at university are thwarted, and all she can think about is how she didn’t appreciate her childhood enough.

The attention of someone older and more powerful can be dangerous to a young person, as bewitching as it may first appear. With Maggie, Catherine Johns seems to beg the reader not to fall into the human trap of wishing you were older or younger than your current age, and instead to cherish every moment in this precious and fleeting life that can change irrevocably at any moment.