The Woolgrower’s Companion
by Joy Rhoades
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Pub Date Jun 08 2017 | Archive Date Jun 30 2017
Random House UK, Vintage Publishing | Chatto & Windus
Description
Australia 1945. Until now Kate Dowd has led a sheltered life on Amiens, her family's sprawling sheep station in northern New South Wales. The horrors of war have for the most part left her untouched. But with her father succumbing to wounds he's borne since the Great War, the management of the farm is increasingly falling on Kate's shoulders.
With only the sheep-rearing book The Woolgrower's Companion to guide her, Kate rises to the challenge. However the arrival of two Italian POW labourers unsettles not only the other workers, but Kate too -- especially when she finds herself drawn to the enigmatic Luca Canali.
Then she receives devastating news. The farm is near bankrupt and the bank is set to repossess. Given just eight weeks to pay the debt, Kate is now in a race to save everything she holds dear.
The Woolgrower’s Companion is the gripping story of one woman’s fight to save her home and a passionate tribute to Australia’s landscape and its people.
‘A heartbreaking tale, beautifully told. Magical.’ Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help
Advance Praise
‘Beautifully captivating, beginning to end. A heroine's story of family redemption and love beyond boundaries.’
- Jane Hoppen, Author, In Between
‘Utterly compelling, The Woolgrower’s Companion draws you in, layer by layer, until by hand and heart you live in the world on the page.’
- Posie Graeme-Evans, Author, Wild Wood
‘The Woolgrowers' Companion evokes a vivid wartime Australia with fidelity and sensitivity.’
- Prof. Peter Stanley, UNSW, winner of Prime Minister's Prize for History 2011
‘In The Woolgrower's Companion, Joy Rhoades pulls off the novelist’s greatest challenge, confronting readers with surprises that - however shocking - are inevitable.’
- Peter Selgin, winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Fiction, and author of The Inventors
‘In a word, wonderful.’
- Jeffrey Renard Allen, novelist, most recently of Song of the Shank
Marketing Plan
Joy Rhoades was born in a small town in the bush in Queensland, Australia, with an early memory of flat country and a broad sky. Growing up, she loved two things best: reading and the bush, often climbing a tree to sit with a book. Her family would visit her grandmother, a fifth generation grazier and a gentle teller of stories of her life on her family’s sheep farm.
At 13, Joy left for Brisbane, first for school and then to study law at university. After graduating, she worked all over the world as a lawyer. It was in New York that she completed a Masters in Creative Writing at the New School University, and the people, the history, and the landscape of her childhood led her to start The Woolgrower's Companion.
She now lives in London with her French husband and their two young children, but she misses the Australian sky.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781784741341 |
| PRICE | £12.99 (GBP) |
| PAGES | 320 |
Featured Reviews
Lesley N, Reviewer
This story set on the other side of the world and at an interesting time in history had me gripped. Towards the end of WW2 the Australians were having to rely on PoWs to keep the rural economy going as so many of their own men were away fighting. The struggle to survive, especially at a time of drought, in the unforgiving landscape was well told and full of interesting characters. In addition to the relationships with the PoWs there was the situation at the time with the Aborigines who were not generally well treated. Add to that the troubles posed by an ever sickening father and our heroine was really up against it. Engrossing and well worth the read.
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