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A Woody Creek Novel #4
Wind In The Wires
The wind is whispering in Woody Creek...Change is in the air
It's 1958 and Woody Creek is being dragged kicking and screaming into the swinging sixties.
Jenny's daughters, Cara and Georgie, are now young women. They have inherited their mother's hands, but that is where their similarity ends. Raised separately, they have never met.
A mistake from Cara's teenage years looms over her future, but she believes emphatically in the white wedding and happily ever after myth. Georgie has seen enough of marriage and motherhood. She plans to live her life as her grandmother did, independent of a man.
But life for the Morrison girls has never been easy, and once the sisters are in each other's lives, long-buried secrets are bound to be unearthed, the dramatic consequences of which no-one could have predicted...
It's 1958 and Woody Creek is being dragged kicking and screaming into the swinging sixties.
Jenny's daughters, Cara and Georgie, are now young women. They have inherited their mother's hands, but that is where their similarity ends. Raised separately, they have never met.
A mistake from Cara's teenage years looms over her future, but she believes emphatically in the white wedding and happily ever after myth. Georgie has seen enough of marriage and motherhood. She plans to live her life as her grandmother did, independent of a man.
But life for the Morrison girls has never been easy, and once the sisters are in each other's lives, long-buried secrets are bound to be unearthed, the dramatic consequences of which no-one could have predicted...
480 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2012
33 people are currently reading
209 people want to read
About the author
Joy Dettman
22 books163 followersJoy Dettman was born in country Victoria and spent her early years in towns on either side of the Murray River. She is an award-winning writer of short stories, the complete collection of which, Diamonds in the Mud, was published in 2007, as well as the highly acclaimed novels Mallawindy, Jacaranda Blue, Goose Girl, Yesterday's Dust, The Seventh Day, Henry's Daughter, One Sunday, Pearl in a Cage, Thorn on the Rose, Moth to the Flame and Wind in the Wires. Ripples on a Pond is Joy's fifth novel in her Woody Creek series.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
June 10, 2024
EXCERPT: 'Where did she get me?' Cara's heartbeat thundering in her ears, muffled her own words.
Gran flicked a bird-claw hand towards the heavens. 'God sent you. All those churches had those homes for the unwed, and by God there were plenty of them around during the war.' She lifted her cup, sipped and spoke over the rim. 'We all knew they'd been talking about adopting before the war, but she never said one word about doing it while your father was away. Mind you, not that I saw her from one year's end to the next. While Robert was over there, I saw your mother at Christmas and Easter if I was lucky. And she only lived half an hour away from my house. Too busy with her lodgers to worry about how an old lady was getting along.'
The cup was down again and empty this time. Cara's stomach threatening to get rid of Christmas dinner, she picked up the cup and walked fast to the kitchen where she stood over the sink, swallowing her need to vomit while staring through the window at the crowded table. Her mother - not her mother - laughing at something Uncle John had said - not her Uncle John. Not her cousins either, not even Pete.
And she was going to howl because Pete wasn't her cousin, howl and vomit at the same time. She'd asked her parents. They'd looked her in the eye and said no, they hadn't adopted her.
'Liars.'
ABOUT 'WIND IN THE WIRES': The wind is whispering in Woody Creek...Change is in the air
It's 1958 and Woody Creek is being dragged kicking and screaming into the swinging sixties.
Jenny's daughters, Cara and Georgie, are now young women. They have inherited their mother's hands, but that is where their similarity ends. Raised separately, they have never met.
A mistake from Cara's teenage years looms over her future, but she believes emphatically in the white wedding and happily ever after myth. Georgie has seen enough of marriage and motherhood. She plans to live her life as her grandmother did, independent of a man.
But life for the Morrison girls has never been easy, and once the sisters are in each other's lives, long-buried secrets are bound to be unearthed, the dramatic consequences of which no-one could have predicted...
MY THOUGHTS: I didn't see that coming . . . that ending, I can't find the words to describe it. Four pages from the end, my jaw dropped. I shook my head. 'No, no, no!' I was devastated. Damn, it was good! And awful. And devastating. And if I'm not making much sense, it is because my chest is still heaving, my head still shaking. Joy Dettman ripped my heart right out of my chest then shredded it and kicked it around the floor a few times for good measure. I may never be whole again.
⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
#WindintheWires
THE AUTHOR: Joy Dettman was born in country Victoria and spent her early years in towns on either side of the Murray River. She sees herself as a wife, mother and grandmother, who steals time from her family to satisfy her obsessive need to write.
Joy was not always a wife, mother and grandmother. She can recall her early obsession with newspaper cartoons. They were her picture books. A newspaper shoutline allowed her to break the code of reading prior to entering a school room, thus addicting her for life to the printed word.
Woody Creek originated as a novel, in the singular, but its characters too long buried, would not be contained. It has grown into a series of seven. Wind in the Wires is #4.
https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...
Gran flicked a bird-claw hand towards the heavens. 'God sent you. All those churches had those homes for the unwed, and by God there were plenty of them around during the war.' She lifted her cup, sipped and spoke over the rim. 'We all knew they'd been talking about adopting before the war, but she never said one word about doing it while your father was away. Mind you, not that I saw her from one year's end to the next. While Robert was over there, I saw your mother at Christmas and Easter if I was lucky. And she only lived half an hour away from my house. Too busy with her lodgers to worry about how an old lady was getting along.'
The cup was down again and empty this time. Cara's stomach threatening to get rid of Christmas dinner, she picked up the cup and walked fast to the kitchen where she stood over the sink, swallowing her need to vomit while staring through the window at the crowded table. Her mother - not her mother - laughing at something Uncle John had said - not her Uncle John. Not her cousins either, not even Pete.
And she was going to howl because Pete wasn't her cousin, howl and vomit at the same time. She'd asked her parents. They'd looked her in the eye and said no, they hadn't adopted her.
'Liars.'
ABOUT 'WIND IN THE WIRES': The wind is whispering in Woody Creek...Change is in the air
It's 1958 and Woody Creek is being dragged kicking and screaming into the swinging sixties.
Jenny's daughters, Cara and Georgie, are now young women. They have inherited their mother's hands, but that is where their similarity ends. Raised separately, they have never met.
A mistake from Cara's teenage years looms over her future, but she believes emphatically in the white wedding and happily ever after myth. Georgie has seen enough of marriage and motherhood. She plans to live her life as her grandmother did, independent of a man.
But life for the Morrison girls has never been easy, and once the sisters are in each other's lives, long-buried secrets are bound to be unearthed, the dramatic consequences of which no-one could have predicted...
MY THOUGHTS: I didn't see that coming . . . that ending, I can't find the words to describe it. Four pages from the end, my jaw dropped. I shook my head. 'No, no, no!' I was devastated. Damn, it was good! And awful. And devastating. And if I'm not making much sense, it is because my chest is still heaving, my head still shaking. Joy Dettman ripped my heart right out of my chest then shredded it and kicked it around the floor a few times for good measure. I may never be whole again.
⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
#WindintheWires
THE AUTHOR: Joy Dettman was born in country Victoria and spent her early years in towns on either side of the Murray River. She sees herself as a wife, mother and grandmother, who steals time from her family to satisfy her obsessive need to write.
Joy was not always a wife, mother and grandmother. She can recall her early obsession with newspaper cartoons. They were her picture books. A newspaper shoutline allowed her to break the code of reading prior to entering a school room, thus addicting her for life to the printed word.
Woody Creek originated as a novel, in the singular, but its characters too long buried, would not be contained. It has grown into a series of seven. Wind in the Wires is #4.
https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...
September 11, 2020
OMG what an ending! It totally floored me. If I had thought I might get tired of this series I was so so wrong - I am as emotionally invested as ever and can't wait to read the next book! With a cliffhanger like this, I am delving right in because I just have to know how this will end. My poor heart cannot take much more.
A great installment in a fantastic series with a rich cast of characters that all seem very real to me by now. Australian fiction at its best. Don't be put off by the book covers that suggest a romance, because this is pure drama and suspense. Highly recommended!
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A great installment in a fantastic series with a rich cast of characters that all seem very real to me by now. Australian fiction at its best. Don't be put off by the book covers that suggest a romance, because this is pure drama and suspense. Highly recommended!
*blog* *facebook* *instagram*
April 10, 2013
Ignore the awful covers that make these look like romance novels. They are very Australian, very real, very country small town and very well written.
October 15, 2013
In an earlier life I laboured on soaps for a living. When I first started I had a milquetoast executive producer who forbade the use of coincidences in our storylines. I used to tell him he was insane (my words) and that an audience loves a gobsmacking coincidence provided it's done with boldness and aplomb. That executive producer would be spinning in his crypt right now if someone had tossed in a copy of Wind in the Wires with him. Our Joy's got FOUR fat corkers of coincidence in the course of this story and I loved every damn one of them - although the final one was SUCH a shock it gave me a sleepless night. Not a spoiler shall I utter. Joy Dettman's Woody Creek saga is bloody fantastic.
September 30, 2012
Loved this installment !! Was shocked when it finished - if you are reading a book you really enjoy on an ereader you sometimes have no idea when you are coming to the end unlike a paperback - that happened to me! Can't wait for the next one !!
October 10, 2013
I absolutely love this series, all the coincidences and all.
How unlikely would it happen that Cara and Morrie did not have enough of a conversation before they married not to have found out they were half siblings. Morrie and Cara's relationship is uncanny - at least she has now met her half brother but not in quite the way she had expected.
This is a catch up for me as I read the next book in the series out of order.
I enjoyed this story as much as the rest but I have to admit I don't quite understand Cara and her feelings, but I guess she has grown up with older parents and after finding out she was the one given away while her biological mother kept 3 others would be hard to handle. She should at least be a little happier now, having seen where her mother lived, that she had Mabel and Robert as parents instead of growing up as one of Jenny's brood.
How uncanny is that Cara's nemises Dino Collins ends up at a commune in Woody Creek, the town where Cara'a biological mother is from and that he has hooked up with Raylene, Cara's bioligical mother's step daughter.
It was good to catch up on Georgie's life too. She is my favourite character after Jenny. Although I did so love Gertrude too.
How unlikely would it happen that Cara and Morrie did not have enough of a conversation before they married not to have found out they were half siblings. Morrie and Cara's relationship is uncanny - at least she has now met her half brother but not in quite the way she had expected.
This is a catch up for me as I read the next book in the series out of order.
I enjoyed this story as much as the rest but I have to admit I don't quite understand Cara and her feelings, but I guess she has grown up with older parents and after finding out she was the one given away while her biological mother kept 3 others would be hard to handle. She should at least be a little happier now, having seen where her mother lived, that she had Mabel and Robert as parents instead of growing up as one of Jenny's brood.
How uncanny is that Cara's nemises Dino Collins ends up at a commune in Woody Creek, the town where Cara'a biological mother is from and that he has hooked up with Raylene, Cara's bioligical mother's step daughter.
It was good to catch up on Georgie's life too. She is my favourite character after Jenny. Although I did so love Gertrude too.
January 7, 2015
Love novels by Joy Dettman, she is such a great story teller. What an ending! There has to be another instalment...
May 13, 2012
wow, now that was not what I was expecting at the end - can't wait for the next installment
September 8, 2012
Loved this book - what a cliffhanger at the end, certainly didn't pick that. Can't wait to read the next book in this series
June 9, 2013
Woody creek series was and is great
March 23, 2014
Disappointed!!! This began like all her Woody Creek series books - fast paced and gossipy but then unlike the others it stretched the envelope just a little too far. There are always circumstances that are a little unbelievable and exaggerated but that fits with the style of the books. This time the cooincidences became more "oh come on" and I found it less and less engaging because of this.
July 4, 2013
part of a series, read in the right order and you won't be disappointed.
October 5, 2013
The drama continues and will certainly unfold in the next exciting instalment. Bring it on!
March 12, 2015
3.5 stars, another great installment in the Woody Creek series!
October 26, 2022
Joy Dettman...I’m hooked. She tells amazing stories. I was so desperate to keep reading the Woody Creek series that I bought this instalment as a kindle version. That’s saying something as I like the real deal and swore I’d never read a book on my iPad.
Fasted read ever. Coincidences, suspense, drama and never a dull page.
On to the next one, I cannot wait to find out what’s in store for the Hooper Morrisons family.
Fasted read ever. Coincidences, suspense, drama and never a dull page.
On to the next one, I cannot wait to find out what’s in store for the Hooper Morrisons family.
August 27, 2025
I absolutely love this series and this book didn't let me down. The characters are so real, so believable. Easy reading and so hard to put down. The ending was so unfair, how can you possibly stop with a cliff hanger like that, my heart was breaking. Could not sleep just thinking about the impact on each of the main characters. Can't wait to start the next book. Brilliant author
May 8, 2017
Loved this book and love the whole series so far. I just don't want it to end.
July 11, 2017
Another great chapter in the "Woody Creek" series - this author writes a marvellous tale & has a wonderful way with words - love her books.
August 2, 2017
Audio version
November 13, 2018
Omg!!! That ending!!!! I never saw it coming. I want more!!!
December 4, 2018
i loved this book just as much as the 3 before it and it leaves you reaching for book 5.
September 29, 2023
Woody Creek series. Book #4
March 7, 2017
As soon as I finish the last book - I gotta get the next one. Loving this series.
O no - I didn't see that coming, till it was there!!! A really good twist.
On to the next one - so good
O no - I didn't see that coming, till it was there!!! A really good twist.
On to the next one - so good
February 5, 2020
I found following the stories of Cara and Georgie really interesting.
August 10, 2014
Have enjoyed this book the most in the series so far. Was nice to see Jenny have a happy ending with Jim for once, but bad things always seems to follow that family. Don't understand why Margaret would tell Jimmy/Morrie that his family and parents had died. So selfish on her part just because she couldn't have kids of her own. I hope that Jimmy, Jenny and Jim get reunited in the next book. I REALLY hate Margot's character...she's just too much like Amber. I don't think we need another character like her in these books. And why does Jenny always get left with the rat bag kids that no one else wants? Just felt like too much coincidence in this book. Lorna meeting up with Amber...and why should Amber get out of jail/mental institution after what she did?...Raelene hooking up with Dino, the guy that tormented Cara for all those years. And Cara looking for her half brother Jimmy for all those years, then marrying Morrie the guy she'd loved for ever only to find out that he is her brother Jimmy!! Did not like this ending! Just feels like no one is allowed happiness in these books. I love how strong Georgie and Cara's characters are though. Hopefully they can find happiness in the next book.
May 11, 2019
I have to read this series until the end. I'm enthralled with the plot, the characters, the spot on capture of the essence of an old fashioned Australian country town and how well the incredible coincidences are played out. Even though it is a work of fiction it embodies the adage "Truth is stranger than fiction "
October 25, 2013
I didn't like this book as well as the others in the series. Everyone has "those friends" who always share their woos. I'm just tired of nothing good happening to poor little Jennifer Morrison Hooper King.
January 27, 2014
I couldn't put this one down - something happened in the third book that I didn't enjoy it as much but this installment was gripping. What a great read, and a great ending. This author certainly knows how to spin a yarn.
May 13, 2014
Sitting down with the next instalment in this series is like sitting down to catch up with an old friend. It is always interesting to see what they have been up to. This book was just that. I am looking forward to the next instalment.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews