Stillwater Creek

Alison Booth's dazzling debut, set in a beautiful coastal town of NSW, is an unforgettable, heart-warming novel about love and loss, betrayal and hope...
It's 1957 and, after the death of her husband, pianist Ilona Talivaldis and her nine-year-old daughter Zidra, travel to the remote coastal town of Jingera in New South Wales. Ilona, a concentration camp survivor from Latvia, is searching for peace and the opportunity to start anew. In her beautiful vine-covered cottage on the edge of the lagoon, she has plans to set herself up as a piano teacher.
The weeks pass, and slowly mother and daughter get to know the townsfolk - including kind-hearted butcher George Cadwallader, who is forever gazing at the stars; his son, Jim, a boy wise beyond his years; Peter Vincent, former wartime pilot and prisoner-of-war; and Cherry Bates, the publican's wife who is about to make a horrifying discovery...
For Jingera is not quite the utopia Ilona imagines it to be - and at risk is the one thing Ilona holds dear...

Alison Booth was born in Victoria and grew up in Sydney. After over two decades living in the UK, she returned to Australia in 2002 and is now a professor of economics at the Australian National University. She is married with two daughters. She is the author of three novels: Stillwater Creek, The Indigo Sky and A Distant Land, all set in the fictional town of Jingera.