A Fancy Man (Paperback)

Frank and Jess had seeped into each other. Severance would leave both of them maimed. Frank is in his forties, a hard-bitten, laconic Australian stockman, left with a baby son and a stepdaughter when his partner decides it's time to move on. Jess is only fifteen, the daughter of the local schoolteacher, certain she wants a life beyond the tight little New Zealand rural town where she has grown up. This absorbing novel, wry, funny and moving, never sentimental, is about a love that transcends 'accepted' boundaries - and about others' reactions to a relationship they fail to understand. It's about unexpected criteria for happieness, about refusing to be bullied by convention.