"In Australia people always run to the coast. Maybe the myth of the bush is a myth." Robert Drewe, Radiant Heat

Blinding Sunlight, my as yet-unpublished first novel, is a story that offers the reader an alternative to the bush myth, a novel that explores the north coast of New South Wales and further north into Queensland; the towns, hamlets, motels and caravan parks that dot the route and offer shelter and pleasure to vacationers from the south.

Beth and Jep, brother and sister, are attempting to come to terms with their parents' sudden death. The bodies of their parents - separated for twenty years - are found near each other after apparently drowning at a remote beach. This one fact begins to unravel the stories the siblings have been told and the histories they have created for themselves.

In their quest to find the truth, they head north from Sydney to Byron Bay and then to North Queensland. Along the highways, in the tourist traps and sleepy undiscovered oases of this northern route, Beth and Jep slowly piece together a new history. Blinding Sunlight explores the themes of grief, truth, and love, both romantic and familial, as well as the landscapes of these coast roads - the sand, the surf, the locals and the holidaymakers. And unifying everything: a hint of smoke in the air, perhaps from bushfires, perhaps from the burning sugarcane fields further north...