Showing results by author "Kerry McGinnis" in All Categories

When Orla Macrae receives a letter asking her to return to the family cattle property where she grew up, she does so grudgingly. Her estranged uncle, Palmer, may be dying, but he is the last person she wants to see, especially since she's made a new life far away from where she lost so much. But on his deathbed he utters a few enigmatic words about a secret locked away and a clue as to its whereabouts.

Two branches of the McAllister family lead very different lives on cattle stations in Central Australia. Rob, a stickler for correctness, manages a wealthy, company-owned property while his easygoing brother Sandy struggles to support his wife and son on an impoverished leasehold. When tragedy throws the families together, ultimately driving them even further apart, it's Sandy's young son Jim who suffers the most.

When Emily's beautiful cousin Aspen goes missing somewhere in the Outback, no one seems to take it seriously, not even the police. After all, Aspen has a history of drug use and a string of broken relationships to her name. But Emily knows that her disappearance is totally out of character, so she books a flight to the Northern Territory to find her. Emily's search takes her south of Darwin to every road stop and tourist trap she can find, but the only person who turns up is the last person she expected to see, her ex-husband Ben. But there is a violent killer on the loose.

Meg Morrissey has just lost her job and her partner to an overseas assignment, when she is called back to the family home of Hunters Reach in the picturesque Adelaide Hills. Her ailing grandmother, who raised her when she was orphaned as a child, has always been a formidable figure in her life and this is hardly a welcome summons. When Meg arrives at the ramshackle old homestead, she learns that the place is up for sale. She is expected to care for the property with its extensive garden, while packing up the contents of the house.

When aspiring actress Charlie Carver learns that her cousin Annabelle has died, she immediately leaves Melbourne to fly home to the remote family roadhouse east of Alice Springs. It has been years since her last visit, and her relationship with her mother, Molly, is strained, but Charlie is determined to patch up their differences. The reunion, however, is interrupted when Molly suffers a heart attack.

Penny Carter's quiet life in Southbend, running a nursery with her ex father-in-law, is turned upside down when Lisa, the young daughter of her late husband, is unexpectedly deposited on her doorstep. The unwelcome houseguest stirs up more than just memories of Penny's husband's betrayal, when a cyclone leads to the discovery of a skeleton buried next to the town cemetery.

Kelly Roberts finds refuge in the rugged and remote cattle country of Northern Australia, but when tragedy strikes, she is forced to find a new life for herself and her children outside of Rainsford Station. She retreats to the family’s only asset - a freehold block of land owned jointly by her eccentric father-in-law, Quinn. In the valley at Evergreen Springs, Quinn hopes the fractured family might all come together to start over again.

Kate hasn’t been home in years, but with her marriage over and her job in jeopardy, she doesn’t know where else to turn. Desperate for comfort, Kate retreats to the Mallee, a place crawling with dark secrets and lingering childhood memories. When she’s offered a carer’s job on the isolated Rosebud Farm, Kate soon meets old Harry Quickly, an intriguing young boy called Maxie and a handsome harvest contractor who’s not shy about making his intentions known. Under the endless Mallee skies, Kate discovers that she might just have a future in the place that has haunted her past.

In the abandoned railhead town of Tewinga, now almost a ghost town, Lyn and Adam Portman struggle to keep the Heartwood Hotel afloat. Lyn loves her husband and longs to be a mother. But she's kept busy caring for her elderly father, her community and Max, the young worker who reminds her of the brother she's lost and dearly misses. When he fails to return from a day trip, Lyn's concern deepens as the length of his absence grows, the more so with rumours of criminal activity at a nearby station. Meanwhile, a chance meeting uncovers a family bombshell that leaves Lyn reeling.

When Sara Blake takes up a position as governess on Redhill Station in Central Australia, she isn’t expecting to encounter a family in crisis, or to uncover a tragedy of her own. The longer she spends out bush, the more she becomes plagued by elusive visions of her dark and troubled childhood. The fragments of memory lead her deep into the red centre of Australia, where at picturesque Kings Canyon she must confront the horrifying secrets of her past.

Young widow Tilly is making a new life for herself, keeping house for the rangers at the Binboona Wildlife Sanctuary in the isolated wilderness of the North-Western Gulf Country. Caring for injured wildlife and helping to run the popular tourist campsite are just the distraction she needs from everything she left behind when her husband, Gerry, and young daughter were lost at sea. But when the police show up asking questions about Gerry, the peaceful routine she’s built is disrupted as she begins to question what really happened to her family.

Billy Martin runs from home, burying his past in the quest for a future. He finds it in Queensland's spectacular Gulf Country, on the sprawling cattle runs. The Gulf breeds tough men, and Billy is quickly drawn to the excitement and adventure of working with the fiery cattleman and ex-con Blake Reilly and his daughter, Jo.

After seven tough years of droving, Kerry McGinnis yearns for a proper home. When her irascible but lovable father buys a property in Queensland’s Gulf Country, it seems she might have found one, but not everything goes smoothly. In their struggle to make a go of things, the family encounters fire, flood, a three-metre python and other human obstacles. Kerry and her sister, Judith, discover that life in a man's country is far from easy. At a time when young women are expected to settle down and have a family, Kerry must make some difficult decisions.

This is the unforgettable memoir of a young woman's journey with her family through the outback. At the age of six, Kerry McGinnis loses her mother. Her father, left with four young children to raise, gathers up his family and leaves the city to go droving. For the next 15 years, the McGinnis clan travels the continent, droving, horse breaking and living off the land. Kerry grows up in the harsh outback, and the animals that inhabit the land are her closest friends. With the memory of her absent mother ever present, Kerry begins her difficult journey into young womanhood.