"A gripping and thought-provoking novel about finding the lost child in all of us" --Cover.

Once an artist and teacher, Jen now spends her time watching the birds around her house and tending her lush sub-tropical garden near the small town where she grew up. The only person she sees regularly is Henry, who comes after school for drawing lessons. When a girl in Henry's class goes missing, Jen is pulled back into the depths of her own past. She lost her father and her best friend Michael when she was Henry's age. They also went missing - both in the same week. The whole town talked about it then, and now, nearly forty years later, they're talking about it again. Everyone is waiting - for the girl to be found and the summer rain to arrive. At last, the answers come, like the wet, in a rush - torrential, drenching, but ultimately revitalising - and the countryside delivers up its lost children. --Back cover.

Stella longlist 2015.
Miles Franklin longlist 2015.