Snowy Mountains Daughter by Alissa Callen

Recently on Twitter, Wendy from The Super Librarian made an observation about attempting to buy a Kindle book only to have Amazon tell you that you already own it. My response was that always prompts me to think I really should read that book, which is the same thing I will think when I try to buy the book again in 6 months. Alissa Callen is one of those authors for me. I own several of her books, and I have tried to buy them again several times, and yet, I have never actually read one.  Based on this book, what a mistake that is!

When I heard that her latest book, Snowy Mountains Daughter, is the first in a series, I was determined to get in right from the beginning of the series, and boy, I am glad I did. In addition to the central story, which I will get to in a minute, we have been introduced to many of the characters who will form the central stories in coming books. There's a lot to look forward to.

Clancy Parker was born and bred in Bundilla. Whilst her adventurous (and accident prone) brother is off adventuring in the UK, Clancy has no desire to leave her home. Besides, she has a farm to look after including fields full of peonies to harvest, as long as the weather holds out. She has good friends, she loves the landscape and the lifestyle. Her life is complete. Well, except for the fact that the one man she has ever wanted is distant, both emotionally and physically.

Heath MacBride left town ten years previously after a savage fight with his father, who basically told him to never come back, and especially to leave Clancy Parker along.  He has, however, returned to Bundilla to complete a commission in the town he grew up in. He is going to paint the town's water tower, and then he is going to leave town. It's a good plan. If only there wasn't clearly something not quite right with his parents, and then there is his irresistible pull towards Clancy. If he can keep his feelings under control and not show her any glimpse of how he feels then he can be on his way to the next artistic commission. His father made it clear that he can't be both a farmer and an artist and so there can be no future here.

As Clancy and Heath danced around each other, I find myself hoping that they would just have a conversation, so I was definitely cheering when they finally started to be honest with themselves and each other. Heath did seem particularly reticent emotionally, which I get given his background. 

One of the key "characters" in the book is Bundy, the kelpie dog that goes wherever he wants in the town, spending a day or two with one person then wandering off to spend another day or two with someone else as he sees fit and even interacting with some of the kids as a kind of therapy dog. He isn't the only animal to come to life on the pages too.

I really loved that Heath was coming home to paint the water tower. We have a real penchant for painted silos/water towers, and have shared several photos over the years of examples of this type of art. We have travelled all over Victoria looking for them. I think that we have 5 or so left to visit, which we will at some point. Here are a couple more examples or click on this link to see lots of my favourites

At some point we will go and take a closer look at the one that is only 10 minutes from home.

The descriptions of the scenery also bought back memories of our recent trip to the Australian Alps. Whilst the fictional town of Bundilla is set in the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales, and we stayed on the Victorian side (because we weren't allowed to cross the border), I could see the mountains, and the landscape, and the occasional historic hut which is used by hikers for overnight stays.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and will be looking forward to the next books in the series. And in the mean time I can go back and read some of those otherbooks that I have sitting on my Kindle

Rating 4.5/5