Joy Dettman

Ann Burton was born on a river bank the night her father tried to burn the house down. Six years later her sister Liza disappears while they are staying at their uncle's property. What Ann sees that day robs her of her memory and her speech. Ann escapes her anguished childhood, finding love and a new life away from Mallawindy....

On a balmy midsummer's evening in 1923, a young woman - foreign, dishevelled and heavily pregnant - is found unconscious just off the railway tracks in the tiny logging community of Woody Creek. The town midwife, Gertrude Foote, is roused from her bed when the woman is brought to her door. Try as she might, Gertrude is unable to save...