The Windmill in the Silver Gums by Leonie Kelsall

Leonie Kelsall writes rural fiction from her family farm in the South Australian Murraylands, and her Settlers Bridge novels are set in that same stretch of country near the Murray River. The Windmill in the Silver Gums is the newest of them, and like the others it stands on its own.

Indi Jaensch is trying to hold the family property together after a tragic accident. Drought and debt are pressing in, and an agribusiness tycoon is buying up the district. A local farm worker, Blake Robertson, becomes an ally, though Indi is not sure whether he is the thing that saves her or the thing that undoes her.

A century earlier, as the First World War turns neighbours against each other, nineteen-year-old Rose marries a farmer of German heritage and finds herself branded an enemy on her own soil. Pregnant and alone, she holds a farm and a family together through it.

When Indi finds Rose's journals, the two women's stories begin to speak to each other across the generations. Both are fighting to keep their land, and both need more than courage to do it.

A dual-timeline rural novel set in South Australia, for readers of Tricia Stringer, Fleur McDonald and Fiona McIntosh.