AustLit

'Shelley and her mom have been menaced long enough. Excused from high school where a trio of bullies nearly killed her, and still reeling from her parents’ humiliating divorce, Shelley has retreated with her mother to the quiet of Honeysuckle Cottage in the countryside. Thinking their troubles are over, they revel in their cozy, secure life of gardening and books, hot chocolate and Brahms by the fire. But on the eve of Shelley’s sixteenth birthday, an unwelcome guest disturbs their peace and something inside Shelley snaps. What happens next will shatter all their certainties—about their safety, their moral convictions, the limits of what they are willing to accept, and what they’re capable of.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Pat Carson’s old eyes were on me, looking for something.
‘Man is born unto trouble,’ he said.
I said, ‘As the sparks fly upwards.’
Deep lines at the corners of his mouth. ‘Know your Job. Soldier. Policeman. Haven’t been a bloody priest too, have you?’

'Anne Carson: fifteen, beautiful, wayward. Abducted.

'The rich Carsons have closed ranks and summoned Frank Calder, subject to strict instructions. This is not the first kidnapping in the Carson family and hard lessons have been learned.

'But are the two events connected? And is greed the motivation? Revenge? Or could it be something else? To find out, Frank Calder must go beyond his brief.

'And his every step into the darkness may end a girl’s life.'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Text ed.).

'Day's mother died with her eyes wide open in 1947, near Maude, New South Wales. No doctor was called. Day watched his father drop her body into the red earth wrapped in a hessian feed sack. He was only twelve. When he rode up Muddy Gates Lane, away from there, he didn't know that he was leaving, but he was sure he wasn't coming back. Day's journey took him to America, travelling as groom for a horse called Unusual. On the Eastern Shore of Maryland he meets Callie, who wants to be the world's first woman jockey. There is no doubt in her eyes, she knows about things that Day has never seen. He is stranded by a love for Callie that takes him back to the harshness of his childhood in Australia, to the dark secrets of his family.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.