The Watervale Ladies’ Writing and Firefighting Society

In the tradition of Sophie Green, Joanna Nell and Tricia Stringer comes an absolutely sparkling, feelgood delight of a novel, set in the Clare Valley, where four very different women are thrown together in a creative writing course in the library of a small country town.

When international lawyer Matilda 'Tilly' Marr is reluctantly dragged back from London to negotiate the purchase of a massive landholding in the South Australian wine country, she thinks she'll fly in and out in a matter of days with a billion-dollar contract under her arm. But hardnosed local matriarch Bev Jackson has a counteroffer of her own: the town's only solicitor has fled in disgrace, so if Tilly will work there for a month, Bev just might consider selling.

Tilly reluctantly agrees, setting up shop in the Beechwood Cafe. She's soon drawn into village life, joining a writing group and the rural fire brigade with Bev and two other local women: Fenna de Vries, a fallen TV star on the run from gossip columnists and a violent past; and Jane Robertson, the local librarian, whose silent struggle to have a child might be blinding her to a different calling. And as Tilly discovers, Bev has a tragic secret of her own that she's kept for sixty years.

But bushfire season is approaching and a day of reckoning is coming for them all. Telling the truth and fighting fires often come down to the same question: Is what I am about to do really worth the risk, considering what's at stake? Sometimes taking the chance to find your true voice is what it takes to save your life.