Author(s): Gillian Ranstead

Fiction.

In a remote rural valley in the New Zealand hills, two cultural traditions interweave. The land is owned by Maori, and there are many Maori in the community. But the other families regard themselves as Celtic, with ancient memories stretching back through the centuries, to Culloden, and before. A traumatised people speaking Gaelic have been dispossessed and driven out of their homeland, to seek refuge in New Zealand, only to find themselves caught up in a history that has dispossessed the original people of the new land. Two great traditions blend - and also clash. Growing up in the extended family is the girl Mara, the one they call Girlie, abandoned by her free-wheeling journalist mother and brought up by uncles and aunts. A free spirit herself, Mara struggles to understand the power of the past. Then a great flood devastates the valley and the community is scattered. First published September 2008, Auckland