The book starts with the prologue on New Year's Day in 1959 in Adelaide Hills.
We are introduced to Isabel Turner, who we discover is married to Thomas and has three children Matilda, John and Evie. She is getting the house ready for the New Year, decorating everything,a nd she thinks that sometimes she wishes she could make her family disappear for a bit.
The book then moves forward in time. It is Christmas Eve in 1959. Percy Summers, who owns the grocery shop in town, is worried about how hot the weather is, and he remembers the terrible fires happening in 1955. He has been delivering some things on his horse, Blaze, and we discover that he is married to Meg, his childhood sweetheart, and they have two sons. As it is too hot, he decides to let his horse to have a bath in the lake that is on the property of the Turners. When he is close to the house, he sees them at the distance. He can tell that they are having a picnic, and he approaches to say hello. Then he sees them lying on the grass, and when he comes closer, he knows that there is something strange. When he approaches Mrs Turner, he discoves that she is dead, and he realises that the rest are also dead, and her runs to find help.
In the first part we are introduced to Jessie Turner-Bridges, who lives in London in 2018. Jessie is having a hard time now because she is now unemployed and she is burdened with debts as he needs to pay her mortgage. We also discover that Jessie was in relationship with Matt for years, and they both agreed that they didn't want children. Yet, now Matt is married to someone else (Maxine) and has a baby. I wonder what exactly happened. Jessie is a writer but the projects she takes to magazines and publishing houses are turned down.
Then Jessie receives a call, telling her that her grandmother, Nora, has taken a fall. Jessie grew up with her grandmother in Darling House after her mother, Polly, abandoned her. Nora has always been a tower of strength for Jessie, and when she was twenty, she left for London in her gap year, and she didn't return. Now Jessie is on her way home because Nora is very old and this fall could kill her.
The book continues with the story of Percy. He is taken to the police station, and Sergeant Peter Duke, who is an outsider sent by the police in the city, keeps asking him the same questions. What Percy failed to realise when he found the family is that the baby, who Mrs Turner, had a few months ago, was gone, and now a party of locals are trying to find her. Percy saw the cot hanging on one tree branch but he didn't check. When he is allowed to go home, the sergeant asks him about his son, Kurt, who is fourteen and had a relationship with Matilda Turner.
I wonder what the relationship between Jessie and the Turners in 1959 is. This is a great start for a novel, and I am sure I am going to love it.
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