Currawong Creek

by Jennifer Scoullar

  Clare stood on the ferny bank and scattered the ashes on the water. They dissolved in the dark stream, as it leaped from its course and shattered in a rainbow of spray on the rocks below. Grandad wasn’t gone at all. He lived here now, where she could always find him. With a silent prayer, Clare retraced her path and stepped from the shadows into the sunshine. Back to where Tom waited for her.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks go to my patient family, for putting up with a distracted writer in their midst. Special thanks to my son Matthew, for always being willing to brainstorm ideas.

  I want to thank my talented writing buddies of the Little Lonsdale Group for their help and support. Thank you to Sydney Smith for her structural advice, and to Clare Allen-Kamil for her wisdom, and for being such an enthusiastic advocate of my work. Thanks to Varuna - The Writer’s House for sending me on a magical writing retreat to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland.

  Thank you to Belinda Byrne for her wonderful encouragement and enthusiasm, to Ali Arnold for her perceptive editing, and to Caro Cooper and the rest of the Penguin Australia team. Thanks to my lovely agent, Fran Moore from Curtis Brown, for having faith in me from the start.

  Lastly, I’d like to thank the folks at the Cider Gum Café in the glorious Bunya Mountains, for looking after me while I penned the final chapters of this book.

  MICHAEL JOSEPH

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2013

  Text copyright © Jennifer Scoullar 2013

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Cover design by Nikki Townsend © Penguin Group (Australia)

  Text design by Samantha Jayaweera © Penguin Group (Australia)

  Cover photographs by Girl: Chris Bennett/Getty Images, Tablelands: Terry Everson Australian

  Landscapes/Getty Images, Irrigation pump: Southern Stock/Getty Images

  penguin.com.au

  ISBN: 978-1-74253-840-2

  Set among the hauntingly beautiful ghost gums and wild horses of the high country, Brumby’s Run is a heartfelt, romantic novel about families and secrets, love and envy and most especially, the bonds of sisterhood.

  Samantha Carmichael’s world is turned on its head when she learns she’s adopted – and that she has a twin sister, Charlie, who is critically ill.

  While Charlie recovers in hospital, Sam offers to look after Brumby’s Run, her sister’s home high in the Victorian Alps. Within days, city girl Sam finds herself breaking brumbies and running cattle with the help of handsome neighbour Drew Chandler, her sister’s erstwhile boyfriend.

  A daunting challenge soon becomes a wholehearted tree change as Sam begins to fall in love with Brumby’s Run – and with Drew. But what will happen when Charlie comes back to claim what is rightfully hers?

  PRAISE FOR BUMBY’S RUN

  ‘This is a book that celebrates the country and, more importantly, the bush as a life-changing environment. But we also have a heart-thumping romance.’ The Weekly Times

  ‘Great fun.’ Newcastle Herald

  ‘A lovely story of family and self-discovery, of love of the land and the wildlife that live on it.’ 1 Girl . . . 2 Many Books