OBSERVER: Second Chance Family
Finding happiness after grief is something everyone hopes to experience.
That’s the theme of popular rural fiction author Barbara Hannay in her latest novel, Second Chance Family.
Callie is a young widow with three children and still grieving the loss of her beloved partner when she receives an unusual offer.
She finds she has inherited one half of Hawkridge, a beautiful property in Far North Queensland’s Misty Mountains area, and is puzzled about why she has been the beneficiary.
Like all good family tales, there is more to the situation than meets the eye, which Callie gradually discovers as she gets to know Ben Galbraith, a Scotsman who is her co-inheritor. Ben assisted Hawkridge’s owner in the final years of his life. And the twist here is that the property can’t be sold for 12 months, so Callie and Ben must learn to manage this tricky co-owner situation.
Hannay has lived in the area she was writing about, and has fond memories of it so decided to set her story there.
As two of Callie’s three children are teenage twin girls. Hannay drew on her own life to get some insights from her own two teenage identical twin granddaughters, who were very excited about being the inspiration for their grandmother’s fictional characters.
Hannay always writes a good yarn with questions that make the reader think, and Second Chance Family is no exception.
It is published by Penguin Random House and available online and in bookstores now.
Julie Houghton
Pictured: Barbara Hannay