Cirrus@Austlit

'The rains come to Brisbane just as couple Elise and Dan descend into grief. Elise, a scientist, believes that isolation and punishing fieldwork will heal her pain. Dan, a writer, questions the truths of his life, and looks to art for answers. Worlds apart, Elise and Dan must find a way to forgive themselves and each other before it's too late.

An astounding debut novel that forensically and poetically explores the intersections of art and science, sex and death, and the heartbreaking complexity of love. The Breeding Season marks the arrival of a thrilling new talent in Australian literature.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'It's pre-dawn, all dark. Breeding season. Elise wakes just before her alarm goes off, skin sharp in the cold air. She tugs the blankets back across her body, curls her knees in and lets herself - for a moment - think of Dan asleep at home in Brisbane, long limbs spidered into all the corners of their bed. In her mind, she sits across from him and kiss-counts the freckles on his shoulder. On his nose. His beard tickles her chin. He exhales warm air through his damp gap mouth and he will never know it, how she runs her hand across his clavicle, sternum, ribs as he sleeps; how she traces the lines of his wrist and hip where the flesh is thinnest, where she might so easily push in.' (Introduction)