by Loretta Hill
‘Nothing.’ Tash was smiling but her eyes were glassy.
They had only just realised what their father had done. He hadn’t told them the story that had occurred but the story they’d needed to hear.
‘Trust him to do that to us,’ Eve shook her head. ‘Do we even have eight grape varieties on this property?’
In that moment, their mother walked in with Heath hot on her heels. ‘No, love, there are nine,’ she said. She looked very stately in a pale pink lace skirt-suit, a dignified string of pearls about her neck. Her hair had been curled and stylishly framed her pale face.
‘Mum!’ The Maxwell sisters let go of each other to embrace her.
‘Where were you?’ Eve demanded. ‘I couldn’t find you anywhere.’
‘I was in the garden, just soaking in some of your father’s presence. I also got this from his study.’ Her eyes glistened slightly as she held up a long box to Eve. ‘Your father knew he wouldn’t be here for your wedding. So he left this for you, darling. So that you would know that he’s with you on this day just the same.’
Phoebe held her breath as Eve took the box and slowly opened it. On a bed of white velvet lay a delicate gold bracelet of a fine link design, studded with small sapphire stones.
‘It’s gorgeous.’
‘Not as gorgeous as you.’ Anita reached up and pulled her down to her level so she could kiss her forehead and then both her cheeks.
Tash sniffed and wiped away a stray tear.
‘Are you okay?’ Phoebe whispered.
‘Yeah, fine,’ Tash nodded quickly. ‘I’ve just seen that bracelet before.’
As Phee looked about the room at the rest of her family, she realised that if their father was looking down right now he would be smiling because everything that he had wanted, everything that she had promised him three years ago had come to pass. Her family was no longer broken, they were stronger than ever and she could see only happiness in their futures.
‘All right then,’ Anita pulled away from Eve. ‘I better let you girls finish up. Don’t keep Adonis waiting, Eve. He’s nervous as anything already, poor dear.’
‘I won’t,’ Eve nodded, as Phoebe helped her put on her new bracelet.
Her mother, Heath and Grace disappeared out the door and she turned to her teary sisters. ‘So now thanks to Dad I’ve got something blue and new. What about something old and borrowed?’
‘Well,’ Tash suggested with a wink, ‘I could always lend you some of my lingerie again.’
‘No way.’ Eve held up her hand. ‘That got me in enough trouble last time.’
‘Besides, you shouldn’t be lending out stuff like that to anyone who asks,’ Phoebe protested. ‘Lingerie is very personal.’
‘Here, here,’ Eve put in sternly.
‘Of course,’ Tash assured them, ‘I wouldn’t do it for just anybody. But sisters are different. Especially the Maxwell sisters.’
Phoebe and Eve smiled back at her.
‘For sure,’ Eve confirmed. ‘Club members only.’
Tash grinned. ‘Precisely.’
Acknowledgements
There are so many people I need to thank for their contribution to The Maxwell Sisters, which has been a project I’ve been working towards for quite some time.
Firstly, I must thank my dedicated team of critique partners, Nicola E. Sheridan, Karina Coldrick and Marlena Pereira, who generously fit me around their own work and writing to give me invaluable insights into my manuscript. I am so grateful for their feedback and support. Thank you, guys.
I must thank Ben Gould, my very own winemaking expert from the Margaret River wine region, who generously provided his time and advice whenever I needed it. Without his knowledge and expertise, this book would not have the authenticity that it does. Thank you so much, Ben, for your kindness and patience, particularly with reading my manuscript and sending me notes. I cannot stress more how appreciative I am.
Similarly, to my good friend and fabulous chef, Natalie Sansom, who really helped me with the details of Eve’s career, design of the Tawny Brooks restaurant and all other aspects of a chef’s life. Thank you so much for answering all my questions. I know there were a lot of them!
Then, of course, there’s my wonderful cousin-in-law, Dr Raphael Chee, who kindly helped me understand bowel cancer, particularly how it progresses in a patient and how to treat it. This really helped me with the timeline of the novel and I can’t thank him enough for his expert knowledge and his readiness to give it in this instance. Hugs!
Thanks to everyone at Random House Australia who was involved in getting this book on the shelf, especially my publisher, Beverley Cousins, editor, Elena Gomez, and publicists, Jessica Malpass and Lucy Inglis. Your enthusiasm is such a pleasure to work with. Thank you also to my fabulous agent, Clare Forster, for her support during this time.
As a mum, with four children under seven, sometimes the most difficult thing is finding the time to write. I literally have an army of people helping me get through my week. Thank you to my mum, Aunty Moira and Uncle Richard for all the babysitting you do. Thank you to my dad, who has been picking up and dropping my kids at school every day. What a hero! To my mother-in-law, Shirley, who came to live with us (very bravely) for a week whilst I wrote non-stop for seven days to catch up on my lagging word count. To my wonderful husband, Todd, for taking time off work on several occasions to look after the kids while I retreated to the library. And finally to our nanny, Rebecca Laing, to whom the children have grown so attached. Thank you for being so flexible with your time and for bringing my children so much joy. I couldn’t have found someone better than you.
As for my children, Luke, James, Beth and Michael, the brightest little stars in my life, thank you for your love, understanding and patience.
Author’s Note
This story is set in the South-West region of Western Australia in a quiet town called Yallingup, an Aboriginal word meaning ‘place of love’. It is one of my favourite parts of Australia, to relax, to eat, to drink and to be with family.
Yallingup shares in a slice of the Margaret River wine region, an area encompassing several townships, bounded to the east by the Leeuwin–Naturaliste Ridge, between Cape Naturaliste and Cape Leeuwin, and to the west by the Indian Ocean. Some of the other towns are mentioned in this book, Dunsborough, Busselton and Margaret River to name a few. The region is most famous for its world-class wine, surfing and gorgeous natural limestone caves surrounded by beautiful jarrah-marri forest. It’s a very popular holiday destination for people living in Perth or indeed anywhere around the world.
For me, setting my book here was a no-brainer. The beauty of the landscape, the romance of the winemakers and the truly Australian feel of the surrounds made it the ideal place for me to drop the mad Maxwells of Tawny Brooks Estate.
While I wanted to keep the book as real as possible for readers, I did have to invent a few places and just wanted to clarify which areas are fictional. Rickety Twigg road, which cuts from Bussell Highway to Yallingup, is not a real road, nor are any of the estates mentioned on it, such as the Oak Hills Winery. This road and the surrounds, however, are based on Wildwood Road – the real gateway to Yallingup.
All other wineries mentioned in this novel, other than the ones on Rickety Twigg road, are real and definitely worth visiting if you’re ever down this way. Similarly, Canal Rocks is a true natural landform and a gorgeous spot to enjoy Australia’s beautiful coastline.
The Wildwood Bakery in Dunsborough is a fictional business – however, with a sense of the real one in mind. There has been a bakery in Dunsborough since the 1940s, famous for its pastries and delicious bread, which no tourist in town has ever been able to walk past without sampling. Ben, the young man the Maxwell sisters meet when they visit the bakery, is also a real winemaker from Cowaramup, another town in the area. He has been my ‘go-to guru’ for all things wine and vine. You can taste his organic label Blind Corner in many restaurants throughout Australia, including Rockpool
in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne. Please do. Trust me, it’s good! I relied on some of Ben’s biodynamic philosophies for my character John Maxwell and his eccentric but highly successful growing techniques at Tawny Brooks. These philosophies allow for an organic, natural and sustainable wine with unique and diverse flavours to fall in love with. To learn more about Ben and his wine, or wine in general check out www.blindcorner.com.au.
Other than fabulous wine, great food and gorgeous scenery, I wasn’t just aiming to give my readers somewhere to go for their next holiday. This book, at its core, is about family and about growing up and growing old. Not just that sense of becoming an adult from a teenager or retiring after many years of labour, but the idea that every time we go through a milestone in our life, it changes us. As we change, the people who love us have to grow with us, too. These people, our sisters, our mothers, our fathers, our husbands, our children, all put their own footprint on our lives and shape us into who we are. And it’s in developing and nurturing these relationships that we become stronger and, in turn, learn more about ourselves.
This is the message of my novel and I hope in all the Maxwell family drama, secrets and humour, it will shine through.
All my love to you and yours,
Loretta Hill
Loretta was born in Perth, the eldest of four girls. She enjoyed writing from a very early age and was just eleven years old when she had her first short story published in The West Australian newspaper.
Having graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering and another in Commerce, she was hired by a major Western Australian engineering company and worked for a number of years on many outback projects. She drew upon her experiences of larrikins, red dust and steel-capped boots for her bestselling novels The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots, The Girl in the Hard Hat and The Girl in the Yellow Vest. The Maxwell Sisters is her fourth novel. Her new release, The Grass is Greener, which is also set in the wineries down Rickety Twigg Road, is available now.
She lives in Perth with her husband and four children.
Also by Loretta Hill
Novels
The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots
The Girl in the Hard Hat
The Girl in the Yellow Vest
The Grass is Greener
Novellas (available as ebooks)
Kiss and Tell
One Little White Lie
Operation Valentine
If you enjoyed The Maxwell Sisters, read on for an exclusive extract of Loretta’s new novel The Grass is Greener.
Chapter 1
‘So?’ Claudia cupped her hands around her steaming mug. ‘Now that we’ve finished lunch, tell me how you’ve really been.’
For Bronwyn Eddings, looking into her best friend’s kind eyes over a comforting cup of tea was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It had been too long since she’d seen a friendly face, and the mask that she’d worked so hard to keep in place began to crack.
‘I hate my life,’ she said firmly, her fist thumping on the polished timber tabletop in their favourite Perth cafe.
‘Okay,’ Claudia blinked in surprise. ‘I wasn’t expecting so extreme an answer, but go on.’
‘I hate it,’ Bronwyn repeated, glad finally to get what had been going through her mind for months off her chest. ‘I hate all of it. Every single, commercial, materialistic piece of it. I hate my boss …’ she ticked off on her fingers, ‘I hate my job. I even hate my apartment. It’s cold, empty, lonely and completely unwelcoming. And,’ she added with a purse of her lips, ‘I hate wearing skirt suits. They’re so stiff. I feel like a funeral director in them, and with all the bad news I’m constantly delivering I –’
‘Okay, okay, okay.’ Claudia held up a hand to stall the complaints. ‘I get the picture. What’s brought this on, Bron? I know it’s been a while since I saw you –’
‘Over six months.’ Bronwyn drummed impatient fingers on the table.
‘Yes, more than six months since I’ve been able to drive up to Perth,’ Claudia continued calmly. ‘And that is definitely my fault. I’ve been a bad friend to you. Totally MIA. I’m sorry.’
‘I know you’ve been having a hard time with your dad and everything.’ Bronwyn smiled with understanding. ‘And it’s not like I couldn’t have driven to you.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything in your emails?’
‘Emails are so impersonal.’ Bronwyn blew her blonde fringe out of her eyes as she dropped her chin in her palm dejectedly. ‘Besides, I didn’t want to send you a ten-page rant. Not that my schedule would give me time to write that. It certainly isn’t billable.’
‘Ten pages, huh? Surely things haven’t all turned to shit since I last saw you. Has something happened at work to make you feel this way?’
‘You don’t understand, Claud. It was shit when you were last here. And the time before that, and the time before that. I just didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want you to think less of me.’
‘Why would I think less of you?’
‘Because I brought this on myself.’ Bronwyn slumped in her chair. ‘And I know you. You’d be the first one to point that out.’
‘Okay, I’m really not getting this.’ Claudia frowned. ‘What is so terrible about your life? You work for one of the most prestigious law firms in town, your career is exactly on track and you’re making more money than you have time to spend.’
Bronwyn bit her lip. That’s exactly what’s wrong with it.
At her telling silence, Claudia folded her arms. ‘Bron, you have everything you ever wanted. Hell, you have everything we both ever wanted. The kickarse career, a stake in stuff that really matters …’
‘I’m not passionate about the law the way you are,’ Bronwyn tried to explain. ‘I suppose I can get the job done. But I don’t like it.’
‘Seriously? You don’t feel the power of the justice system coursing through your veins as you right wrongs, save the innocent and put the bad guys away?’
Bronwyn grinned at her best friend. Claudia had always been an environmental crusader, a human rights activist and completely Left politically. At uni, she had been a member of all the community groups. Save the whales. Feed the orphans. Keep the arts centre open! And while you’re at it, don’t eat meat, don’t drink dairy and plant a tree once a year.
Bronwyn laughed. ‘Come back to earth, supergirl. That’s not what it’s like for me at all.’
Claudia leaned back in her chair thoughtfully. ‘Better than driving from one hotel to another, giving the same boring spiel about why they should have Oak Hills wines in their cellar.’
Bronwyn shook her head. ‘There is nothing boring about Oak Hills or their wine.’
‘There’s nothing earth-shattering about it either.’ Claudia thought about the business that had supported her family for at least two generations. ‘I’m completely over it.’
‘It’s better than my job.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ Claudia exclaimed.
Bronwyn winced. ‘Do you know where I was this morning?’
‘Court?’
‘I wish,’ Bronwyn sighed. ‘I was at Casuarina Prison, meeting one of my clients.’
Claudia’s eyes lit up like a little kid in front of a cupcake. ‘You got to go to a maximum security prison? Damn, girl, how exciting!’
‘Yes, with all those lovely murderers and rapists inside. What an adventure! My client was as terrified as I was. He can’t wait to be shifted.’ She shuddered as she recalled the sweat beading on Peter Goldman’s brow as he had pleaded with her to do something … anything … to get him moved on. She didn’t blame him. She’d been awake to every sound in that place as she’d walked through all the checkpoints, even with a massive guard leading the way. What would it be like to be on the other side of those bars? She didn’t want to think about it. Peter was a white-collar criminal. She very much doubted he’d be able to hold his own against other, more physically imposing types. However, he had to wait in prison until his sentencing. That was just pro
cedure.
It was times like these that made her hate working as a lawyer even more – moments when she involuntarily caught herself actually feeling sorry for the criminal. Peter Goldman was a con man. He had stolen the life savings of hundreds of honest middle-class families to service his life of luxury – big house on the hill, boat in the bay, a gambling debt the size of Bronwyn’s mortgage, and all the happiness fraudulent funds could buy. His only regret was that he’d got caught. He deserved to be punished for this. So why did she feel sympathy for him? Her mother would have a fit if she knew that she’d been affected by his pleas.
What was the first rule of thumb? Professional perspective with your client was paramount – never care personally for them, simply look after their affairs. She was too soft to be a lawyer – she couldn’t seem to switch off her emotions when the occasion demanded it. Peter must have sensed that weakness in her when he’d hit her up with that inappropriate proposal.
‘What happened?’ Claudia demanded when Bronwyn fell suspiciously silent.
‘Oh, nothing,’ she tried to end the subject. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘I’ve got time. Tell me.’
She glanced up at Claudia. There was a little glint of steel in her best friend’s sharp blue eyes. Now that was the look of a lawyer. It was ruined, of course, by the streaky honey-brown hair that cascaded over her shoulders in gentle waves – nothing a French roll and a bit of dark lippy couldn’t fix, though.
She figured Claudia would get it out of her one way or another so she might as well save herself some time. ‘Now that my client is in prison, his wife is divorcing him. She’s taking their kids and leaving Perth to go live in Melbourne.’
‘That sounds understandable.’
‘It is, only his dog no longer has a home. His wife is refusing to take the dog with her.’
