Melbourne author Lisa Reece-Lane’s first novel Milk Fever is named after a condition that befalls dairy cows shortly after they calve. Left untreated, it can be fatal. Narrated in turn by ethereal dairy farmer Tom and young mother Julia, a former ballerina married to new age zealot Bryant, Milk Fever explores the legacy of family secrets, motherhood, marriage, and the heady complications of love and attraction. 

Wife and kids in tow, Bryant throws himself into establishing a yoga centre in the fictional hamlet of Lovely, where the preferred form of healing is hitting the pub. He has two students: Tom, whose genuine ability to hear the earth’s vibrations rivals any crystal healing Bryant is capable of, and Summer, the local butcher’s wife. Julia soon suspects Bryant is doing more than aligning Summer’s chakras but she has unforseen problems of her own: she’s obsessed with hunky Tom.

If plot twists are your thing, there’s no shortage of them in this tree-change drama: car accidents, affairs, murders, suicides, ghosts, wicked mother-in-laws and a little bit of old fashioned romance thrown in.