Fleur McDonald X2 paperback Novels Voices in the Dark Deception Bay, Rural Fiction.
Voices in the Dark
When Sassi Stapleton receives a middle-of-the-night phone call to
tell her that her beloved grandmother is unwell, she quickly puts
her job on hold, packs her Ute and sets off on the long drive home,
knowing her grandfather will need her.
Less than an hour away from Sassi's hometown, Barker, she swerves
to miss a roo and her car rolls down an embankment. By the time
Sassi is found, her grandmother has already passed away.
On the other side of the world, Sassi's estranged mother, Amber,
receives a similar call and shocks the whole family when she flies
home from South Africa.
With everyone under the same roof, tensions escalate as Amber's
secrecy and odd behavior become unsettling. What is she really
doing at home with a father she's barely spoken to since she left years ago?
Emma Cameron, a recently divorced farmer and a local in
Barker, runs Deception Creek, the farm that three generations
of her family have owned before her. Every day Emma pushes
herself hard on the land, hoping to make ten-year-old memories
of a terrible car accident disappear. And now there are more
recent nightmares of an ex-husband who refuses to understand
how much the farm means to Emma.
When Joel Hammond is released from jail and heads home to Barker,
Detective Dave Burrows and Senior Constable Jack Higgins are
on high alert, Joel has a long and sorry history with many of the
townsfolk and they are not keen to see him home to stay.
Not all of the Barker locals want to see Joel run out of town,
though. Some even harbor doubts about Joel's conviction. The
town finds itself split down the middle, families pitted against
each other with devastating outcomes.