by Clarke Fountain
synopsis
Laurel and Emma are sisters, two young women who are, for a change, extremely happy exactly where they are, which is in a college town in the Blue Mountains of Australia. Their happiness is rudely ended when their mother, Anna, decides to relocate them to the spare and (to the girls) grossly uninteresting bush country of Australia. Their new school is extremely backwards and boring, and what is worse, their mother seems to have grown quite erratic, given to emotional fits and bouts of drinking. They lack the experience and imagination, perhaps, to understand the toll World War II is taking on her.
