Ths was a great read. It was this Australian author’s first book and i wish her well for her future writing.
The Narrator is a new born baby, sacrificed and buried by the mother The baby bears her mother no grudge but continues to monitor her mother’s life and has the ability to fill in the back story of her mother’s early years. I really enjoyed this connection between birth, life, death and the earth.
It is set in the Australian bush, away from urban living, just after World War I It is a story of rustling, neglect, loneliness, hard livng, endurance and courage.
I enjoy her writing style, at times with a slight mystical quality. We are reminded of the the earth and all the stories its contains, giving it a living, breathing quality. The things that are going on in the various layers of the earth reminds me of Julian Barnes saying ‘It’s just the Universe doing its stuff’.
For some reason or other I kept feeling the story was set in the C19th. I kept missing or overlooking the clues to its era. But in my mind i think I’ll keep it that way. -the horses, the mountains and caves, all the virgin country where people could hide and not be found, the scattered huts where people tended their cattle. This unrelenting country is another character in the story with, in varying amounts, her husband, her lover, the law, and reward hunters.
In my eyes this is a little gem of a book.
lazycoffees 
So glad you liked this too lazy coffees. I think it’s a little gem too. Like you I felt it was 19th century but in fact I think she, the woman it is based on, was active around the 1920s. But, Collins’ writing is beautiful isn’t it?
Great story, thanks for recommending it!
Sounds like such a good read!