'They said he was their boy. And so he was . . .'
In 1913, on a summer’s day at Half Moon Lake, Louisiana, four-year-old Sonny Davenport walks into the woods and never returns.
The boy’s mysterious disappearance from the family’s lake house...Read more
Louisiana 1913. Three young boys are enjoying their summer playing outside near the edge of the forest as their wealthy parents Henry and Mary entertain guests at the family lake house. Next, the unthinkable happens. The Davenports are well known and respected in Opelousas and the...Read more
In 1974, in country Queensland, Charlie Campbell forces a car off an unlit and rarely travelled dirt road into a tree, killing the pregnant driver. The crash wakes Charlie’s sister, Abby, who’d been sleeping in the passenger seat next to him. They were heading to their father’s farm....Read more
Kirsten Alexander’s second novel evokes 1970s Queensland as it explores the fallout of a tragedy.
In her acknowledgements at the end of Riptides, Kirsten Alexander touches on the difficulties she faced in writing about her home town:
...Read more
Australians who grew up during the era in which Riptides is set may recognize a heck of a lot of their own experiences; the long road trips on rubbish roads, the relentless heat, Bali (even as it was back then), perhaps even turning on the TV at Christmas time to news of the devastation...Read more