The Defiant Land

By Vienna K. G. Leary

The land remembers. The people must decide what to carry forward.

On a windswept farm in Tasmania's far northwest, a falling pine tree and a letter from the bank force Robert Hurd to confront a question he has avoided for years: what happens to Breccia when he and Judith can no longer run it?

They have no intention of leaving. But staying will require more than determination.

Next door at Goldwash, Ian Goldsworthy is searching for a sustainable future for the family dairy, discovering that the value of a farm lies as much in its workers and accumulated knowledge as in the animals it produces.

Meanwhile, fourteen-year-old Jock Hurd becomes fascinated by The Sweetheart, an abandoned waterwheel at Lovers' Drop. His friendship with Virgil, Breccia's ageing mechanic, uncovers the story of Daniel Mercer, a young man who left Tasmania decades earlier—and a love Virgil has carried quietly throughout his life.

As old photographs emerge, machinery is examined and a new generation begins learning the work, the past becomes part of the farms' future.

Set among the green paddocks, saturated soils, battered shelterbelts and fierce westerlies of northwest Tasmania, The Defiant Land is a novel about rural succession, the dignity of work, love, belonging and the courage to change without surrendering what matters.

Some people leave. Some stay. The land asks something of them all.