AustLit

'The small town of Gundagai in the 1930s is no place for the attractive and flamboyant Belle Carson and her young son, Teddy – particularly when she longs for him to achieve the success that eluded her on the stage and screen. Determined to pursue this dream, she abandons her husband and their Murrumbidgee River home for a more vibrant city life. But Belle’s obsession leads her and Teddy – whom the press christens ‘the Murrumbidgee Kid’ – into a world where nothing is safe or familiar. And from her carefully hidden past a threat soon emerges to make their precarious lives even more vulnerable . . .

'From rural Gundagai to the bright lights and shady underbelly of 1930s Sydney, this is a beautifully written and absorbing story about an unconventional family’s coming-of-age.'

Source : author's blurb

Elizabeth Patterson is the headstrong daughter of a powerful member of the Australian Government. When she falls in love with Stefan Mueller, a German national, eyebrows are raised and whispers begin circulating within certain circles. The pair eventually marry and move to the Barossa Valley in South Australia, to grow grapes and live an unpressured existence. The outbreak of WWI seals their fate, however, giving rise to bitter hatred and threatening Stefan with the prospect of incarceration.