Previously Published Book
Australian Fiction
Martin and his father poured water from both hoses to flood the room in the Small Cottage, where inside a grotesque blackened figure had just collapsed to the floor amongst the flames.
Headlights were coming up the drive. A truck raced up the side road past the Big Cottage. More headlights appeared, more trucks arrived. Voices shouted. Directions were given. Men were running. Water pumps began spluttering into life, their noisy motors shattering the peace of the countryside as hundreds of gallons of water began bombarding the cottage on all sides.
This novel depicts the lives of three generations of the Nelson family. Pa, the patriarch of the family and his wife Sophie living in the main homestead and their son James with his wife Louise and their three children, Martin, Clara and Tania in the Big Cottage.
Together they face years of drought, of wool recession. Louise starts up a Craft Cottage Industry to involve many farmer's wives around the township. But the farm slowly slips into the red, and the family are forced to adapt. A rural tourism industry develops and produces untold benefits for the family.
Join the Nelsons as they cope with tragedy and distress as well as finding eventual contentment.