The Yalda Crossing

What action would be best for me?' I asked. We waited together. I thought for a while that he meant not to reply.'James,' he said at last, 'that's something no-one can decide but you.'New South Wales, 1832Captain James Beckett and his lover, Harriette, leave behind the proprieties of Sydney society and pioneer far west of the Blue Mountains to the Morrombidgee River, and deep into the lands of the Wiradjuri. Harriette's daughter, Emily, and The Captain's son, Young James, have no choice but to join their parents' struggle to establish a life and holding in alien country.When new settlers destroy sacred sites and hunting grounds, the hard-won understanding between the Becketts and the Wiradjuri is shattered. The shocking events that follow will torment Young James for the rest of his life.Praise for Noel Beddoe's Autumn'I was moved by those limpid visions of landscape and the characters who move so sadly and haltingly through it.' Tim Winton'Beddoe excels at lyrical, glassy prose that splendidly evokes the land.' Nicholas Jose