The Housekeeper

A chilling, literary novel about a nomadic young woman who becomes tangled in the stories of her past and the search for a wild boy. Teenage runaway Jamie Hall-entrapped by circumstance and poverty-seems incapable of escaping the mountain-and-valley watershed that was the birthplace of her maternal grandparents. Working as a housekeeper for Margaret, a retired photographer who leaves behind a pictorial chronicle of the valley's history, Jamie finds herself trapped in a town-and amongst a group of locals-unable to shake the relentless grip of the past. There's an ancient postmaster who lives through his memories of Jamie's grandmother, the woman he loved but who was never his. There's Galen, an ex-con who falls in love with Jamie, and who finds himself threatened by Harlan, a childhood friend who has become a murderous poacher. And then there's the wild boy tied to a tree. When Jamie sets him free, she unintentionally involves both Galen and Harlan in a fatal chase and unleashes a force of evil that will haunt her for the rest of her life.

Prize history

• Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction

  2007

  Longlist