Jessica Hart

Woman at Willagong Creek

Release Date: 1992

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CF13III
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CF13III

 Cool, chic, city girl Olivia flies out to Australia to bring her best friend’s orphaned son, David, home to London. Cattle rancher Guy, who’s been looking after David, wants to keep the little boy with him at Willagong Creek - no place for a woman like Olivia. The only way she can stay and care for David is a marriage of convenience to Guy. Against the wildness and heat of the outback, Olivia’s feelings grow for her strong, masterful husband - but Guy won’t lay a finger on her … until she asks. Will Olivia dare to seduce her own husband?

A Little Bit Extra...

I never wanted to be a writer. My earliest fantasies were about being a nurse (courtesy Lucilla Andrews) or living on a vast outback cattle station with a man who wore a hat and dusty boots (fantasy copyright Lucy Walker). The nurse fantasy was crushed early on - everyone told me I'd be a terrible nurse because I'd argue with the doctors - but I held on to the dream of Australia, and eventually I did go and work as a cook on a cattle station in north-west Queensland, and Woman at Willagong Creek was just the first of a number of romances set in the outback, although as a Brit I always felt a bit cheeky writing them.

This was my third book, and it’s still one of my personal favourites. I’m sure that was a lot to do with the setting. I love the outback: the light, the space, the wildness of it. I wasn’t like Olivia, who hates it at first, but the kitchen at Willagong Creek is the one I cooked in, and she uses The Aerophos Cookbook just like I did. So many of Olivia’s experiences are mine, in fact: taking smoko out to the muster, passing out after cutting my finger with a sharp knife, the homestead with the footprints in the dust …

Alternative covers:

Cover design by and copyright Debbie Lishman 2013
Image of couple copyright MJTH 2013, used under licence from Shutterstock.com