Gathering Storms. Kerry McGinnis. 2024.

‘I felt shaken out of myself by the morning’s events, as if the landscape of my life, or at least the fixed positions of that landscape, had been tumbled together and rearranged’ 

Penny Carter’s quiet life in Southbend, running a nursery with her ex-father-in-law, is turned upside down when Lisa, the young daughter of her late husband, is unexpectedly deposited on her doorstep. The unwelcome houseguest stirs up more than just memories of Penny’s husband’s betrayal when a cyclone leads to the discovery of a skeleton buried next  to the town cemetery.

As the mystery around the unsettling discovery grows, Penny, supported by the enigmatic neighbour Flint, begins to question everything she knew about her own childhood and her mother’s death. Family secrets long thought buried come bubbling to the surface, as other shocking revelations see Penny and Lisa in an ultimate race for survival. 

But what other secrets will the wet season uncover, while the whole town is cut off from the rest of the world?