(Published by Aardvark, paperback, 8 March 2018)
The choices of the past echo through the generations in this moving New Zealand saga tracing the lives of the Sandle family, first encountered in Kidman’s Songs from the Violet Café.
When war widow Irene Sandle goes to work in New Zealand’s tobacco fields in 1952, she hopes to start a new, independent life for herself and her daughter – but tragedy forces her into the arms of Jock, whose actions will haunt the lives of the couple’s future children. Though headstrong Belinda will carve her own path through a changing world and seize a second chance, she struggles to deal with her own family drama as her younger siblings are haunted by the past.
Covering half a century, this is a powerful exploration of family ties and heartbreaks, and of learning to live with the past from one of New Zealand’s best-loved, multi award-winning writers.
‘Kidman, a poet, is a beautiful writer’ The Times
‘Readers are in good hands; like all Kidman’s writing, it is engaging and captivating’ The Lady
