Lesley J. Mooney Books

An epic adventure story set on the coast and inland, detailing life in Western Australia in 1948 on a sheep and cattle station. This is real outback living where dramatic events can occur and unforgotten shadows effect the everyday lives of others. When the meatworks were in Wyndham, escaped prisoners strike terror… a family and a stockman with unhappy pasts… the mailman finds a strange body on the road… an accident in windy weather… a shearer with talent… a tragic death daunts natives… a minister’s plane crashes… cattle rustlers cause a stampede… three girls lost in the mountain range discover the past… and even love alters lives…

Loving another man, the feisty young Rianna becomes an unwilling bride to the possessive yet compelling Lord Rowan McClaron.After travelling to his ancestral home on the storm battered cliffs of the east coast of Scotland, Rowan’s passion becomes overwhelming, but a wedge is driven between him and his young bride when Rianna initially fails to produce the expected heir.A ghostly vision on the staircase, an attempted assault by a visiting relative, a ruthless encounter on the moors and Rowan’s jealous and violent testing of her love bring Rianna to a fearful decision, one which involves another Scotsman, but leaves death and heartbreak in its wake.

This story relates to my own individual, genuine experiences which occurred previously from early 1945, when I have naturally included the details of a few years before, to explain my circumstances as they were then. Just turning twenty one, my father wrote and asked me an odd question, which was to take on a job as a cook on a station, up in North Queensland. Though 'totally inexperienced', this position sounded interesting and intriguing. New adventures lay ahead for me on that unknown part of the Australian outback. I doubt if my father even considered my lack of capabilities for this position at all. Later this job also offered another one, with the bush nurse asking for me to come and nurse, care and cook for, an elderly man at McKinley Qld, again absolutely inexperienced. These parts of my story included meeting new people, and everything else that happened in my life, then and in the future. This is real life with the time passing on, and everything that happened after then. It also contains personal details of the author and families lives, and that of others.

This story occurs from the 1920s to the 1980s. A little island girl is rescued by missionaries after a tsunami, and this tragic event marks the start of a series of turbulent and challenging years as the girl moves between families and homes, her freedom and safety constantly at risk. Distraught when her adopted parents die, she's fostered and the father cares too much. After enduring a forced year in a brothel, she learns new talents for nursing, photography and singing which are finally recognised, then she's assaulted. Joining the Army in 1944 in New Guinea, Japanese forces attack and the girl and some others escape in a plane which is shot down. They are hunted, but rescued by a missionary in a small village, who offers a canoe for escape. Discovering her father too late, but a letter renews her hope, dreams and faith. With the missionary on his island, will true love be enough to overcome a tragic past and an unknown future?