How deep do the scars of childhood trauma run? Are patterns of violence handed down like a genetic legacy or is it possible to break the cycle and free yourself from the past? These are the questions explored in this stunning debut.

Alice Hart’s life is like a fairytale. She lives by the sea, cocooned in a world that encompasses the family farm and her mother Agnes’s garden. Alice loves travelling the world through the stories Agnes spins around the two of them. Just like a fairytale, they are imprisoned in this world by a dark wolf: her father Clem, who shows his jealous, volatile nature through domestic violence.

When she’s nine, Alice is abruptly wrenched out of this world by a family tragedy. Clem’s mother, June, takes Alice to live at Thornfield. Alice has never met her grandmother. June has turned Thornfield into a thriving flower farm that is also a place of peace and refuge for abused or neglected women who live and work on the farm. Under their care she slowly recovers from her traumatic childhood.

But past wounds run deep and when Alice is 26, a devastating betrayal causes her to flee Thornfield and seek to make a life of her own in the central Australian desert. When she falls in love with the charismatic but dangerous Dylan, Alice must discover inner strength to forge her own story.

I loved this book. The luminous writing and rich imagery leaps off the pages, especially the descriptions of Australian native flowers. Alice is a compelling heroine, who finds the courage to keep going even when all seems lost.

Reviewed by Melinda Woledge