Salt Rain
When fourteen-year-old Allie’s mother, Mae, mysteriously disappears in the dark waters of the Sydney harbor, Allie is taken by Julia – an aunt she barely knows – to stay at the dilapidated dairy farm where her mother grew up.
As the days pass and the heat of the wet season swells, Allie confidently waits for her mother’s call, certain that Mae will reappear as she always has in the past. In the meantime, Allie lurks around the cabin belonging to her mother’s first love, a man who still lives deep within the valley.
When the truth about Mae’s childhood and Allie’s mythical father, the Balloon Man, begins to surface, Allie must sort through the lies her mother has told her…
Sarah Armstrong worked at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for eight years before leaving Sydney and journalism for the north coast of New South Wales, where she now lives. Salt Rain – short-listed in Australia for the 2005 Miles Franklin Literary Award, the 2005 Dobbie Award, and the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award – is her first novel.
