The Woolgrower's Companion (Hardcover)

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 Jack, 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 farm. 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 a distant husband 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.