In the spring of 1949, Stella O'Riain flees her home - a sheep property on the barren edge of the Strzelecki Desert. She leaves behind the graves of her husband Joe and her baby daughter. With no money and limited options, Stella accepts her brother-in-law Harry's offer to live at the O'Riain cane farm in the Richmond Valley. There she hopes to get answers to the questions that plague her about her marriage. However Harry refuses to discuss Joe or the family's secrets, even forbidding her to speak to the owner of the neighbouring property. Nearly a century earlier in County Tipperary, Irish cousins Brandon and Sean O'Riain also fled their homes - as wanted criminals. By 1867, they are working as cedar-cutters in New South Wales's lush green Richmond Valley. But while Brandon embraces the opportunities this new country offers, Sean refuses to let go of the past. And one cousin is about to make a dangerous choice that will have devastating consequences down the generations . .
Spanning two centuries, Nicole Alexander's compelling new novel is a story of love and faith, destiny and betrayal, in a land as richly diverse as the secrets it keeps.
South Australia, 1919. Ross Grant has always felt like the black sheep of his wealthy Scottish family. An explorer at heart, he dreams of life on Waybell, their remote cattle station in Australia's last remaining wilderness, the Northern Territory.
Then his brother Alastair is branded a deserter after going missing during the Great War and Ross is coerced into marrying Darcey Thomas, a woman he has never met, to save the family name. Disgusted with his manipulative family, he turns his back on his unwanted wife just hours after the ceremony, and heads to Waybell with no plans to return.
But Ross has not counted on Darcey's determination to be his wife in more than just name. Nor did he anticipate meeting Maria, a young, part-Chinese woman who will capture his heart. And he certainly wasn't prepared for how this beautiful yet savage land will both captivate and destroy his soul...
Rural Queensland, 1929. Edwina Baker wants more from life than to be a daughter, sister and, perhaps soon, wife. So when her father bans her from attending the visiting circus Edwina defiantly rides to the showground dressed as a boy. And when the night ends in near-disaster, this one act of rebellion offers Edwina the rare chance to prove herself in a man's world. The question is, how far is she prepared to go?
January 1951: Eleanor Webber is fleeing a failed love affair and has returned home to River Run, her family's sprawling sheep property in western NSW. Her hope is to take time to heal, but there's little chance of that happening. With tensions rising in the shearing shed, a mysterious stranger appears on the horizon and Eleanor's younger brother, Robbie, entangles her in a situation that will have serious repercussions for every member of the Webber family for years to come...
New South Wales, 1837: Settlers in search of fertile country are venturing far outside the colony. Cutting a swathe through the bush with their bare hands, they lay claim to territory beyond government jurisdiction - and the reach of the law. As she accepts a position on one such farm, seventeen-year-old Kate Carter is unaware she is entering a land of outlaws, adventurers and murderous natives...
