'A careful, gentle, deeply passionate novel about how a young love, undeclared and unfulfilled, both blights and blesses an entire lifetime, and generations beyond. This story, which begins in rural Australia in 1959 but reaches into the past and the future, is written with Judith Clarke's magnificent precision and lightness, that makes you feel for a moment when you have finished it that you have actually lived someone else?s life.' Ursula Dubosarsky

Judith Clarke was born in Sydney and educated at the University of New South Wales and the Australian National University in Canberra. She has worked as a teacher and librarian, and in Adult Education in Victoria and New South Wales. She now lives in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. A major force in YA fiction both in Australia and internationally, Judith Clarke's novels include the multi-award-winning Wolf on the Fold, as well as Friend of my Heart, Night Train, Starry Nights, and the very popular and funny Al Capsella series. Kalpana's Dream was named an Honor Book in the prestigious Boston Globe/Horn Book Awards and One Whole and Perfect Day was an Honor Book in the American Library Association's prestigious Michael L. Printz Awards for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. Her most recent novel, The Winds of Heaven, was named an Honour Book in the 2010 CBCA Book of the Year awards.