Holly Ringland
In her late thirties, Maggie Byrd lives a charmed life in London. She works with fossils and gems at the Natural History Museum, and shares a home with the two people she loves her best friend, Harriet, and her partner, Joe. However, beneath this carefully constructed facade lies a past Maggie buried deep inside herself and resolved never to the story of a guilt-ridden, heartbroken girl who left Australia in her early twenties and swore never to return. But when she learns that she’s inherited her beloved uncle’s rewilded land in a lush valley of southeast Queensland, Maggie’s London life begins to fracture.
Bordering a town famous for its rare opalised fossil discoveries, the land lies near a volcanic lake rumoured to be cursed, and a sacred, ephemeral tea tree swamp. It is land rich with living culture, and home to an abundance of native flora and fauna. And it’s long been sought after by developers, willing to pay any price. In the nineties, this wild, vivid place also shaped Maggie when she was an angry, lost teenager. It was her home and sanctuary, where she experienced the intoxicating powers and limitations of friendship, first love, desire and loyalty – until she betrayed everyone she loved there and fled.
When the same land that Maggie turned her back on comes into her care, she is forced to face what we all cannot bury, abandon, or forget.