Kate Dowd’s mother raised her to be a lady but she must put away her white gloves and pearls to help save her family’s sheep farm in New South Wales.

It is 1945, the war drags bitterly on and it feels like the rains will never come again. All the local, able-bodied young men, including the husband Kate barely knows, have enlisted and Kate’s father is struggling with his debts and his wounds from the Great War. He borrows recklessly from the bank and enlists two Italian prisoners of war to live and work on the station.

With their own scars and their defiance, the POWs Luca and Vittorio offer an apparent threat to Kate and Daisy, the family’s young Aboriginal maid. But danger comes from surprising corners and Kate finds herself more drawn to Luca than afraid of him.

Scorned bank managers, snobbish neighbours and distant husbands expect Kate to fail and give up her home but over the course of a dry, desperate year she finds within herself reserves of strength and rebellion that she could never have expected.

The Woolgrower’s Companion is the gripping story of one woman’s fight to save her home and a passionate tribute to Australia’s landscape and its people.

Left on the little bookshelf in the front window.

Unsatisfied. Hope there is a sequel.

leaves you with a vivid impression of the lot of Aussie farmers and the changes that have happened in the treatment of aboriginals in the last 60 years.

Caught at SI in Templestowe.

Often the best stories, especially in the historical fiction genre, are those drawn from real life experiences, this is certainly the case with this novel. It is drawn from the first hand experiences of the author’s grandmother, who lived on an agricultural property in outback Australia during the Second World War. The story is carefully composed and rich in authenticity and honesty.
Well worth reading.

Level 3.

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