The sorrows and joys of family life on a vast Queensland station, complete with all the harshness and beauty of the landscape as seen by child-then-adolescent Joan Whatmore. When her adventures take her into other worlds - the conventional elegance of her grandmother's house with its tea-parties and lace, the brilliance of the tropical island off the Barrier Reef where the brief idyll of her married life is spent, the grimy city where she struggles against poverty - all are recorded with vividness. Cottrell's first novel.