Fans of 2001 Vogel winner Sarah Hay will be pleased to learn that her second novel has a distinctly Australian flavour. Set on a remote Kimberly cattle station during the 1980s, Texas charts the lives of third generation farmers Susannah and John, struggling to keep their marriage afloat and somehow make a go of improving the station’s fortunes. In response to his wife’s increasing loneliness, John hires a jillaroo. Enter English backpacker Laura, who takes to the heat and dust like a duck to water and is soon sharing her swag with charismatic Aboriginal stockman, Texas. As their affair blossoms, Susannah succumbs to mean-spiritedness, making a friendship between the two women almost impossible. Surely the romance cannot last? Far from a light-hearted love story, Texas is a timely meditation on Australian history exploring racism, the stolen generations and the link between land and identity. As the ‘build up’ breaks, Hay leaves us with the image of Susannah and Laura staring out at the shimmering surface of an enormous man-made dam. One woman will leave and one will stay, but readers are left to question which of them was brave enough to take the plunge into unknown territory.