AustLit

'Listen like a miner,' Dad said,  ' and you will always know your way out.'

'Yes,' I said, as if I understood.

I warmed him with broth by the fire. My eyes mapped the mountains of his shoulders and the cracked bowl of his hands hollowed out from the handle of the pick. I saw the dust of blue copper loosen from his fingers.' (Introduction)

'I still see her sometimes in my sleep. She is walking through the blue and orange lights of the city or in the desert country of red ground, spinifex and oaks. Last night I dreamed she was climbing a green and blue mountain, the kind you see in the tropics, rich and heavy with steam and rain. She is still only a girl in my dreams, but that's how I remember her. In every dream she is walking. In every dream I call out her name. Tania.

'Ten years after the disappearance of her best friend and the death of her mother, Cassandra Noble escapes her country childhood to pursue life as an artist in the city. On the threshold of a promising career as a painter, her creativity suddenly abandons her. Soon after, she finds herself with a lover who wishes to control her just as her father once did.

'While her last painting just might hold the key to why she can no longer create, what will happen when she discovers the two tragic events of her childhood are linked in ways she could never have imagined?

'A New Name for the Colour Blue is a story of the healing power of remembering, of love, and the breathtaking beauty of the natural world.' (Publication summary)