Ross Grant understood he was a liability to his family when his shortcomings were spat out in anger and spite by his great aunt at the tender of age of seven. He continued to be blamed for every scrape his older brother, Alistair, managed to get him into.

When Alistair goes off to serve in World War I, it is decided by the family that Ross stays to manage the family’s substantial property portfolio. But when Alistair deserts the armed forces after sustaining injuries and is assumed dead, Ross is summoned by his matriarchal grandmother to return to Adelaide and marry the fiancé his brother left behind. Browbeaten by the threat of disinheritance, Ross marries Darcey Thomas and then leaves immediately for his long anticipated journey to Waybell Station to fulfil his childhood dream of managing the Northern Territory property.

Accompanied by Connor, the Scottish family’s clansman, he is asked to take an exotic-looking woman to her new Master at a neighbouring station. On arrival, the state of Waybell Station’s affairs is far from expected and when the wet season obliterates the possibiliy of travel for the next few months, Ross finds himself falling in love with his part-Chinese ward. But he has underestimated Darcey, who has followed him from Adelaide.

Stone Country covers a period of 38 years from 1901, where life is brutal and hard in the outback. It is a sweeping drama which displays the Australian outback in all its glory and remoteness. The pluckiness of Darcey, who is no wilting English flower, was the highlight of the book. I was simultaneously angry, frustrated and sympathetic to the struggling plight of a man bound by his family’s expectations.

Reviewed by Esther Perry