Simmering Season showcases McLeod’s ability to portray life in all its facets. In its laid-back Aussie way, this novel reaches out and grips your heart.

Kind-hearted Maggie Lindeman offers a room at her pub and a helping hand to her friend’s estranged and spoilt daughter, Fiona. A decision she soon regrets. Torn between her troubled teenage son, her failing marriage in Sydney and her ailing father and his pub, Maggie has no time for herself, let alone a selfish princess who seems determined to expose Callingary’s secrets. With the arrival of an old flame and the stirring of past memories, the weather isn’t the only tempest brewing. Before the storm has passed, Maggie and her family will be changed forever.

McLeod’s ability to capture emotion makes it easy to feel Maggie’s frustration, fear and confusion; the scenes with her father ring with a truth that will require tissues, and the early chapters with Fiona are a brilliant portrayal of infuriating self-interest. Maggie’s impossible dilemma is very relatable and as the new proprietor of the local pub – the hub of the community – there is plenty of scope to learn more about the inhabitants of Callingary Crossing. As with the earlier novel in this series – House for All Seasons – the supporting characters are witty, wise and quintessentially Australian.

Simmering Season is Maggie’s story and while she narrates the bulk of the chapters with warmth and compassion, viewpoints of other key characters are interspersed throughout. This gives dimension to Maggie’s perspective and allows the reader to learn more about Fiona and her motives for turning up the heat on the Callingary’s past. There are certainly plenty of dramatic moments, though many of these happen off-stage as Maggie stays in her role of keeper of hearth and home (a characteristic at the heart of her predicament). The truth Fiona seeks remains tantalizingly unresolved until almost the final page.

Simmering Season is not a race to an intense climax. It is a wonderful exploration of letting go, of life, and of the decisions made along the way.