'A gripping and thought-provoking novel about finding the lost child in all of us.
'Once an artist and teacher, Jen now spends her time watching the birds around her house and tending her lush sub-tropical garden near the small hinterland town where she grew up. The only person she sees regularly is Henry, who comes after school for drawing lessons.
'When a girl in Henry's class goes missing, Jen is pulled back into the depths of her own past. She lost her father and her best friend Michael when she was Henry's age. They also went missing - in the same week. The whole town talked about it then, and now, nearly forty years later, they're talking about it again.
'Everyone is waiting - for the girl to be found and the summer rain to arrive. At last, when the answers do come, like the wet, it is in a drenching, revitalising downpour.' (Publication summary)
'This article discusses Sunshine Coast writer Inga Simpson's nature writing in three recent novels, Mr Wigg (2013), Nest(2014b) and Where the Trees Were (2016c). It addresses Simpson's self-categorisation as a nature writer, and shows how the recurrent motif of sacred trees allows three introspective protagonists to reach new understandings of universal themes: loss of love and innocence, ageing, inheritance, childlessness, sexuality, death, ancient cultures, cultural integrity and preservation of the environment. The article considers Simpson's ‘anti-Gothic’ approach to landscape in her novels, yet also shows how her ‘realist’ depictions of place evoke unease surrounding the issue of white belonging in Australia. Simpson's metaphoric self-identification with trees, particularly the Australian ironbark, is pivotal to the quiet power of her fiction's exploration of belonging in the Australian landscape.' (Abstract)
'The disappearance of Daniel Morcombe influenced the plot for this Sunshine Coast writer's lastest novel...'
'This article discusses Sunshine Coast writer Inga Simpson's nature writing in three recent novels, Mr Wigg (2013), Nest(2014b) and Where the Trees Were (2016c). It addresses Simpson's self-categorisation as a nature writer, and shows how the recurrent motif of sacred trees allows three introspective protagonists to reach new understandings of universal themes: loss of love and innocence, ageing, inheritance, childlessness, sexuality, death, ancient cultures, cultural integrity and preservation of the environment. The article considers Simpson's ‘anti-Gothic’ approach to landscape in her novels, yet also shows how her ‘realist’ depictions of place evoke unease surrounding the issue of white belonging in Australia. Simpson's metaphoric self-identification with trees, particularly the Australian ironbark, is pivotal to the quiet power of her fiction's exploration of belonging in the Australian landscape.' (Abstract)
