AustLit

''As I bumped across the water in a leaky tin dinghy I didn't know that the journey had begun. That the pale yellow house with a corridor of columns and long verandah on the high, rough hill would hold the key to it all...'

'At 44 Susan Duncan appeared to have it all. Editor of two of Australia's top selling women's magazines, a happy marriage, a jetsetting lifestyle covering stories from New York to Greenland, rubbing shoulders with Hollywood royalty, the world was her oyster. But when her beloved husband and brother die within three days of each other, her glittering life shatters.

'In shock, she zips on her work face and soldiers on - until one morning eighteen months later when she simply can't get out of bed.

'Heartbreaking, funny and searingly honest, Salvation Creek is the story of a woman who found the courage not only to walk away from a successful career and begin again, but to beat the odds in her own battle for survival and find a new life - and love - in a tiny waterside idyll cut off from the outside world.

'From the terrifying first step of quitting the job that had always anchored her to abandoning herself to a passionate affair that she knows will break her heart, Duncan never flinches from the truth or loses her wicked sense of humour.

'Even when she finds a paradise on earth only to discover that it may be too late. It's been said that the greatest risk in life is not to take a risk. Sometimes you have to risk everything to find the only thing you need.' (Publication summary)

'Continuing the story of Susan Duncan's bestselling and much-loved memoir, Salvation Creek, The House picks up after Bob and Susan marry and, two years later, move from her Tin Shed into his 'pale yellow house on the high, rough hill', Tarrangaua, built for the iconic Australian poet, Dorothea Mackellar.

'Set against the backdrop of the small, close-knit Pittwater community with its colourful characters and quirky history, The House is about what happens when you open the door to life, adventure, and love. But it's also about mothers and daughters, as Susan confronts her mother's new frailty and her own role in what has always been a difficult relationship.

'Where Salvation Creek was about mortality - living life in the face of death - The House is about stepping outside your comfort zone and embracing challenges, at any age. In turn funny and moving, Susan Duncan's beautifully written sequel reminds us to honour what matters in life, and to disregard what really doesn't.' (Publisher's blurb)