Tropical North Queensland is a fine setting for this novel. As well as the lush landscape, some slightly troppo characters, and a small town whose residents are aware of a stranger’s every move, there are two young doctors who meet again after having been in love as medical students in Sydney.

Annie Seaton has now written two novels in her ‘Porter Sisters’ trilogy. The first was Kakadu Sunset, and the third is promised for publication later this year. This one has Dr Emma Porter at its centre and stands alone as a highly readable work of fiction, although her two sisters are mentioned at times.

The author uses the Daintree region of Far North Queensland as her setting for this book, creating the fictional town of Dalrymple at the centre of the action. The world-famous rainforest surrounds the town and is at the heart of the novel’s thriller element, at times overtaking its slightly saccharine romance. It was much more interesting to find out what was being exploited in the forest – and who was breaking the law by doing so – than getting yet another view of the bare chest of the buff Dr Jeremy Langford, which causes Emma (and many other women in the town) to go weak at the knees.

Readers who have visited the region will be familiar with the Daintree River Ferry, Cape Tribulation and the Bloomfield Track, and Seaton is wise to have allowed those factual elements to stand as the framework for this work of fiction. She has also introduced interesting aspects of holistic medicine and the use of alternative therapies, particularly the bush medicine materials that Emma gathers from the rainforest under the guidance of an elderly Aboriginal woman.

A good read, if a trifle melodramatic at times.

Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville