'Set during the 2009 Victorian Black Saturday Bushfires, this novel is a story of courage, loss and the realization that miracles can and do happen. The fires which devastated the tiny community of Cooper Creek affected the lives of those who experienced them in ways nobody expected. Lolly Winter, widowed after six months of marriage, buys a house in Cooper Creek. Fran Lupone who lives on the next property has come to terms with her violent past. This summer she discovers a secret her aunt kept from her when she brought her to Australia from Italy. Garth Evans lives in isolation further up the road, his life embittered by a childhood spent in an orphanage. Over the course of this dry, hot summer culminating in a catastrophe of immense proportions, these people come to terms with their frailties, their connections to each other and to the land they love. Bushfire Summer sweeps the reader into a summer etched in the Australian psyche. This novel is a celebration of people in rural communities, their generosity of spirit and their undeniable acts of heroism when disaster strikes.' (Publication summary)
