Cirrus@Austlit

' A Life on Pittwater gives a glimpse of the way life goes on on the western foreshores, where there are no roads, streetlights or traffic and where the larrikin spirit of times long gone, lives on. There is Susan's lovely home with its gorgeous verandah; the lush surroundings, the bush and the bays; the wildlife and the ever-present dogs; the tinnies, the ferries; the boatsheds and the working boats; the bushfires; and, above all, the close community of arists, actors, writers, shipwrights, cooks and just about anything - a diverse population united by a love of life by the water.

Pittwater is a world where neighbours stop their tinnies to have a quick chat, where no-one ever dresses up and the kids catch the ferry to school. Goannas wander into kitchens to snaffle the Sunday roast and snakes lurk contentedly in barbecues. Everyone has time for a cup of tea and a slice of homemade fruitcake. It's a place like no-where else in Australia; and it's also quintessentially Australian. ' Source: www.susanduncan.com.au/ (Sighted 22/01/2010)

''As I bumped across the water in a leaky tin dinghy I didn't know that the journey had begun. That the pale yellow house with a corridor of columns and long verandah on the high, rough hill would hold the key to it all...'

'At 44 Susan Duncan appeared to have it all. Editor of two of Australia's top selling women's magazines, a happy marriage, a jetsetting lifestyle covering stories from New York to Greenland, rubbing shoulders with Hollywood royalty, the world was her oyster. But when her beloved husband and brother die within three days of each other, her glittering life shatters.

'In shock, she zips on her work face and soldiers on - until one morning eighteen months later when she simply can't get out of bed.

'Heartbreaking, funny and searingly honest, Salvation Creek is the story of a woman who found the courage not only to walk away from a successful career and begin again, but to beat the odds in her own battle for survival and find a new life - and love - in a tiny waterside idyll cut off from the outside world.

'From the terrifying first step of quitting the job that had always anchored her to abandoning herself to a passionate affair that she knows will break her heart, Duncan never flinches from the truth or loses her wicked sense of humour.

'Even when she finds a paradise on earth only to discover that it may be too late. It's been said that the greatest risk in life is not to take a risk. Sometimes you have to risk everything to find the only thing you need.' (Publication summary)