It’s 1978 in Gibber’s Creek and Jed, Scarlett and Lu are three young women facing life’s challenges. Jed has married Sam and is pregnant with their first child, but a man from her past returns to threaten all she holds dear – including her life. Scarlett has moved to Sydney to study at medical school and hopes gorgeous Alex will look past her disabled legs and fall in love with her vivacious personality. Lu has been blinded in an accident that killed her mother and needs to find a reason to live.

The town of Gibber’s Creek and the surrounding bush is vividly described, and its inhabitants are sensitively brought to life. It seems idyllic, but there is the ever-present threat of bushfire that could destroy everything. The area is tinder dry, the wind is hot and strong, and the fire bureaucrats in Sydney have called away the Gibber’s Creek tanker, leaving the town’s fire defences depleted. Old-timers such as Flinty and Nancy read the land and weather signs, and they are fearful of what is coming.

This is the seventh novel in Jackie French’s ‘Matilda Saga’, a historical fiction series that is a story of Australia and a tribute to its strong women. It can, however, be read as a stand-alone book; this is the first book in the series I’ve read, and I can’t wait to read the earlier books.

French’s love of the Australian bush and the people who live there is evident, particularly in her evocative bushfire descriptions. She doesn’t shy away from the grim reality of a bushfire ripping through the landscape, leaving dead animals and devastation behind it. Some loose ends and a mystery revealed in the final pages leaves the way open for the story to continue.

Reviewed by Melinda Woledge