Having experienced the ups and downs of the Australian agricultural industry first-hand, Michael Trant must have found it easy to write about rural life in his debut novel, Ridgeview Station.

As is the case with many outback station managers, the livelihood of Pete and Kelsie Dalton depends on the vagaries of Mother Nature. Things have been looking up for them lately, but farming life doesn’t offer the most stable work. Circumstances could, at any moment, take a turn for the worse.

With a bumper season ahead of them, they take Estonian backpacker Alexi under their wing to supplement their regular workers. Little do they know that the next few months will be the most testing of all, and they will need to draw upon every fibre of strength in their reserves if they are to have any chance of surviving.

After reading the blurbs on the book’s cover that praised Ridgeview Station for its dynamic characters, vivid landscape and a ripping story, I approached the novel with enthusiasm. Rural fiction is, after all, one of the biggest selling genres in Australia, and I have enjoyed novels by some of its best.

I really wanted to like this book, and things were looking promising at the start. The story was simple and easy to follow. But as it progressed, I found that it didn’t hang together as well as I had hoped. The introduction of too many characters, all of whom have their own say as the story plays out, is a significant problem. The narrative, as a result, becomes lacklustre and, at times, predictable.

Ridgeview Station is a good story let down by its telling. Trant’s style does show promise, and I hope that his future efforts will show growth as he comes into his own as a fiction writer.

Reviewed by Jackie Smith