AustLit

'When Patience Cartwright is stranded in her home town, the last thing she expects is a second chance at love...

'Fiercely independent naval officer, Patience Cartwright has never had a place to call home, but she knows where she doesn't belong. After an unhappy childhood and a badly broken heart, she'll never return to the country.

'But to save her career, Patience is forced to accept a secondment - to an environmental team working near the town where she grew up. There she encounters once more the infuriatingly attractive biologist Hugo Halstead - the very man she's sworn never to forgive.

'Given their history, Hugo, as self-assured and honest as Patience is secretive and self-contained, has vowed never to trust her again, but that doesn't stop him feeling just as helplessly drawn to her complicated mix of courage and fragility as he ever was.

'As Patience recuperates from a life-threatening illness in the small country town of Horseshoe Hill, she realises the beauty of the landscape and close-knit community promise something very different to the future she's mapped out.

'But could the secrets she keeps and the shadows of her past, send her adrift all over again?'  (Publication summary)