A group of friends decide to buy a block of paradise in the country: this could be the setup for a thousand stories but, in Kate Mildenhall’s fourth novel, The Hiding Place, it is a vision soon muddied by lies, betrayal and death.
Lou, the instigator of the plan to buy the abandoned mining town in the middle of the bush, is queer, white and progressive. She sees herself and her friends as good people – the kind of people who work hard, vote left and try to take care of the land and each other. So when she sees the Willow Creek property come up for sale, she sees the chance to buy a dream – and “a place for connection and rejuvenation”.
