The Inland Sea

Yani is in her early thirties when, having worked overseas in developing countries for a decade, she returns home to her family in a small, western Queensland town. There she attempts to make sense of her life in the novel company of her seventeen year old niece, Belle, who is preparing to leave the small town to seek her future as an artist in the city.

With glimpses of her recent life overseas and her earlier life in the outback the reader empathises with Yani's conflict: to remain in outback Queensland and pursue the simple life in much-loved surroundings with the possibility of expected milestones such as marriage, or, to return to self-fulfillment in a developing country where the senses are heightened and everything seems to matter so much more than at home.

Home is by no means repellent, the days are pleasant and companionable and with the future of Cooper Creek, one of the last wild river systems in Australia, at stake there is even something for which to fight. This fight - together with the mystical nature of the arid desert landscape, a flood and personal injury - provides a dramatic backdrop to Yani's inner journey, the fundamental essence of which is a spiritual, non-materialist one.

To leave and give, or to stay and love? Or, is that even the question?