Four young energetic business people, from London to Sydney, receive phone calls from their grandmother in the Pilliga Scrub of Australia's outback. Lucy and Seb readily agree to go back to the station because their grandfather is having a knee replacement, and harvest time help would be appreciated. As their parents have died, the young people feel an obligation. Liam and Jemima feel less inclined to assist. HER OUTBACK COWBOY is in the Prickle Creek series and paints a lively portrait of modern Australia.
Lucy Bellamy is our primary guide, an only child with three first cousins. She intends to catch up with office work by night -- in between cooking for the wheat harvest team and helping feed the cattle hands. Working dogs, roadblocking roos and the wheat and stock prices are the important factors on Prickle Creek homestead. An advertising agency or photography studio suddenly seems a long way away.
Garth Mackenzie, the neighbouring lad who was Lucy's first crush, is now running his parents' station as they have retired. Garth looks as fabulous as ever, and now he's got an engineering degree. The outback life is good enough for him. Sadly, some bad feeling has crept in between the two families. Garth isn't going to be the first to mention it to Lucy. His home, which Lucy's gran calls new-fangled, has a big attraction. Broadband. When Lucy learns what her grandparents have to discuss with the family, she might not be that keen to see him anymore.
I thought it was obvious that the succession to the management of the station would be on the senior couple's minds. Farming gets harder as you get older. Dust and flies get tiresome. The family has been torn apart by tragedy, and the longer the young people stayed away from memories of sadness, the harder it became to return. I enjoyed watching the younger generation reassess their lives and aspirations. The saying that you can never come home again is well revisited in the absorbing tale of contrasts and attitude changes. The romance aspect is straightforward, and suitable for mature teens or adults.
Annie Seaton lives on the east coast of Australia and was voted Author of the Year in 2014. She enjoys travelling in order to incorporate landscapes and lifestyles in her books. Let HER OUTBACK COWBOY take you somewhere warmer for winter, where hearts are big and love won't let you down.
The last thing advertising art director Lucy Bellamy wants is to go home to the Outback, but duty to family calls. At least there’s one bonus—her first love, sexy cowboy neighbour, Garth Mackenzie, is there and the attraction between them is still explosive. But Lucy has no intention of getting stuck in this two-bit town and she counts down the days until she can go back to her real life. After an engineering degree and working in the mines of Western Australia, Garth has returned to the Outback and is home to stay. His goal is to settle down, start a family, and work his beloved land with the girl he’s always loved. But if it comes to Lucy choosing between the glamour of the city or making a home with him in the Outback—he’d lose, hands down.
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