The Way To Midnight

by Anna Housego

It's the 1930s in a remote mining town, deep in rainforest and mountains on an island off the bottom of Australia. This is home for the lively, fun-loving Zillah but sometimes it feels more like a cage. When Reg shows up, he brings the hope of a bigger life. She can't know that the good-looking footballer brings something else altogether.

As their attachment grows, so does a sense of dread that things are not what they seem. Reg proposes but Zillah cannot marry him, not the least because her Irish Catholic mother disapproves. Yet she cannot let him go. Both are caught in the escalating tension as Reg loses his job and Zillah grapples with how much she's willing to risk.

Desperate choices must be made, with shattering consequences for the two families and the entire town. Who must face the truth?

Based on a true family story hidden for decades, this disturbing and compelling novel will keep you turning the pages long past midnight.

180 pages, Paperback

Published June 28, 2018

About the author

Anna is a former journalist, worked in an outback pub in crocodile country, was a political adviser, and a communications consultant.

She grew up in a small wilderness town full of eccentrics and colourful characters and now lives near the Southern Ocean in Tasmania, a small island below the south-eastern corner of Australia. Her two grown-up children and their families are nearby.

She writes character-driven fiction with an historical bent and recently released her fifth book, The Two Wives of Cuddy Ranse. Her debut novel, praised for its gripping story and compelling style, is The Way to Midnight, a 1930s mystery that resonates today. It was inspired by a true family scandal that she researched for almost a decade. Find out what it takes to dig up a family secret, with your free copy of Disgrace: Uncovering a Family Scandal, available at www.annahousego.com