'Two sisters, one stranger...a lifetime of questions
'When Tamara Slender disappears from an isolated property in Western NSW in 1975, gossip runs wild with rumours she has run off with a local man, Roger Bryte.
'Months later, Tamara’s teenage daughters, Nancy and Mary, realise they encountered Bryte in caves on their property the day before their mother disappeared. Despite their suspicions, their father refuses to involve the police, and the girl’s grief, fuelled by the town gossips and their father’s inaction, drives them apart.
'In 2007 a stranger arrives at the farm seeking information about Roger Bryte. His questions give Nancy a reason to contact her estranged sister. The sisters are reunited, and their mother’s disappearance is finally solved when Mary returns to Tamarlin.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'K. M. Steele's Road to Tamarlin could be labeled both a mystery and a coming-of-age story, as, in a matter of hours, two teenage girls are chased out of a cave, their mother goes missing, and their father is implicated in the disappearance. One minute these young women play dress-up in their mother's clothing, and the next they worry about being assaulted by a stranger before they say goodnight to a parent for the last time. This novel does not so much use its pages to reveal the effects of grief or investigative concern but rather chronicles the cause and effect of incomplete stories, how with-holding information allows for suspicion to linger, anger to fester, and estrangement to become permanent.' (Introduction)
'K. M. Steele's Road to Tamarlin could be labeled both a mystery and a coming-of-age story, as, in a matter of hours, two teenage girls are chased out of a cave, their mother goes missing, and their father is implicated in the disappearance. One minute these young women play dress-up in their mother's clothing, and the next they worry about being assaulted by a stranger before they say goodnight to a parent for the last time. This novel does not so much use its pages to reveal the effects of grief or investigative concern but rather chronicles the cause and effect of incomplete stories, how with-holding information allows for suspicion to linger, anger to fester, and estrangement to become permanent.' (Introduction)
