AustLit

'Sally Lachlan has a secret that has haunted her for a decade; is it time now to let it go?

'A chance meeting with the charismatic geneticist, Anthony Blake, reawakens her desire for love and at the same time, her daughter, Charlie, shows signs of wishing to know more about her father. Both the past and the future are places Sally prefers not to think about.

'But if she wants to move towards a new love, she will first have to come to terms with her long-ago marriage. Only then will she be able to be honest with Charlie. And herself.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'It is 1957 and, after the death of her husband, pianist Ilona Talivaldis and her nine-year-old daughter Zidra travel to the remote coastal town of Jingera in New South Wales. Ilona, a concentration camp survivor from Latvia, is searching for peace and an opportunity to start anew. In her beautiful vine-covered cottage on the edge of the lagoon, she plans to set herself up as a piano teacher.

The weeks pass, and slowly mother and daughter get to know the townsfolk - including kind-hearted butcher George Cadwallader who is forever gazing at the stars; his son Jim, a boy wise beyond his years; Peter Vincent, a former wartime pilot and POW; and Cherry Bates, the publican's wife who is about to make a horrifying discovery...

For Jingera is not quite the utopia Ilona imagines it to be - and at risk is the one thing Ilona holds dear... ' (Publisher's website.)