I have 4-5 of those small "Roadside Library" things around the place that I frequent regularly, to drop off books that I'm finished with, and maybe find something to take away, although mostly the former as they seem to be mainly populated with "popular" pulp (endless endless copies of "Fifty Shades of...").
But every so often I come across a modest gem like this one and, needing to get back to some fiction, I dived into it. It looks a bit of a lightweight cheapie, but the back blurb got me in, so home it came.
At only about 60k words it's short-ish, but by page 3 it'd sucked me in, of a Victorian farm community in the early days of World War I, as seen through the eyes of the 14 year old daughter of one family, as she navigates growing up in that weird time of anti-German hysteria of seeing neighbour set against neighbour, of catching a young female teacher (who she thought she wanted to be like) secretly sending white feathers to the young men of the district, of sons not coming home from the carnage of Anzac Cove, and all the while the district wrestles with drought and broken families.
I totally enjoyed this well-researched, well-draughted novel, an easy, satisfying read. If you fall over a copy, don't pass it up. And Google "Australian author Judith O'Niell", she has an interesting life story, and several other novels to her name.
Cheers...
T.R.E.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>