Sarah Lark, author of The Fire Blossom, continues her epic family saga as a defiant new generation of women comes of age amid social unrest and precarious love in colonial New Zealand.
It's 1863, nearly twenty years since Ida Lange came to New Zealand to change her life and realize a dream. With her best friend, Cat, she established a thriving sheep farm on the continental plains where their combined families settled—and succeeded. But the idyll of Rata Station could be reaching an end. The fires of change are coming again, and this time it's Ida's and Cat's daughters—Mara, Carol, and Linda—who will get swept up in the ensuing chaos.
The spirited Mara is in the first blush of romantic awakening with a half-Maori boy torn between two heritages. Mara's love for him is a greater risk than either of them can imagine. Carol, engaged to the son of a local sheep baron, has a prospect that seems safe—yet fate has other plans. And Linda, Carol's sweet-natured "twin," who holds the family secret of her heritage close to her heart, can't imagine a life outside Rata Station. Then a sudden tragedy throws the families into peril and desperation.
As tensions escalate between the warring Maori tribes and English settlers, Mara, Carol, and Linda struggle to overcome increasing hardships for themselves and for each other. Drawing on their strong will, resilience, and unbreakable bond, they'll do anything to secure their future at Rata Station before it slips away forever.
