A place IN THE SUN
NICKY SAMPLES OUTBACK FICTION FOR THE FIRST TIME
Iwas aware novels based on life in the Australian Outback are a big thing, but I’ve never actually read one. Clearly, it was time to remedy that, so I picked up Suddenly One Summer expecting a dose of romance. What I got was something else entirely – a blend of melodrama, intrigue and a very clear-eyed view of life as a farmer in sun-scorched Western Australia.
Brianna Donahue has lived in Merriwell Bay all her life and now farms the family property with her father while her husband Caleb commutes weekly to Perth, where he works as a lawyer. Her story opens on a dry, windy day, putting Brianna on high alert for fire. It turns out there are other dramas in store.
First, her little boy Trent goes missing – a traumatic event made even worse by the fact that Brianna’s mother mysteriously disappeared without a trace when she was a child. Then it becomes increasingly clear that she and Caleb’s once-strong partnership is weakening.
There’s another strand to the plot. Detective Dave Burrows (one of this author’s regular characters) is 3000km away in South Australia digging around in the family history of an old farmer who may or may not have once had a sister. And interspersed with those is a third story about a woman found wandering in the bush who has no idea who she is. You just know all those different threads will tangle together eventually.
My first-ever experience of Outback fiction left me in two minds. On the one hand, I enjoyed sailing through this undemanding page-turner. I liked the blend of Brianna’s humdrum life – clearing up Lego from the floor and wrangling sheep – and the drama she finds herself involved in.
Fleur McDonald is great at writing about rural families and she can also build up tension. But later, when I thought about the plot, there were things that didn’t add up completely – why does Detective Burrows get so obsessed with the idea the old farmer might have once had a sister, for instance?
SuddenlyOneSummer rates highly in the entertainment stakes, but I’m not a complete convert to the genre yet.