Paige Quinn and her father occasionally take farm-stay guests on their outback station, but the prolonged drought has left them short of everything including water. Tait Cavanaugh arrives looking for quiet and somewhere to park his laptop, and against her better judgement Paige agrees to host the city type. With her father using a wheelchair after a tractor accident she has to do the physical work herself, and money is scarce.

BENEATH OUTBACK SKIES the land is parched red-brown, cattle suffering, wheat failing. Farmers have given up and the nearest town is quieter each year. But the station owners have their pride, and Tait can't help but offend Paige as he offers to buy all the groceries. Tait has a secret commission from the girl's father to draw up a station management plan, and he's not sure why a lovely young woman would commit herself to life in a dustbowl. When he asks about drought proofing and possible ventures into emus and olives, Paige gets suspicious that he knows too much for a city boy. Can he be a threat to her way of life?

The details fill every page with Aussie life, from Akubra felt hats to red heeler cattle dogs, ute vehicles and esky cold boxes for food. School is taken in front of a screen at home, shower water is poured over pots of herbs. To assist positive mental health, each month a farmers' get together is held, where a district drought relief worker provides meat, bread and beer to bring families to socialise over a barbecue. Sixteen years of drought have taken their toll.

Alissa Callen writes with conviction and introduces us to her world down under, a contrast to busy Sydney, and makes us care about her characters. Tait has secrets which he's kept buried that draw him to the desolate abandoned homesteads. Paige wears old jeans and dust, scented with diesel instead of perfume. A billabong, or waterhole, attracts birds and snakes, kangaroos and feral dogs - but it's irresistible for a swim. Under the spell of the water Tait kisses Paige, and she promptly tells him she's not a one-roll-in-a-swag girl. Got to love that girl! I really enjoyed every page of BENEATH OUTBACK SKIES and fans of sincere romance tales in well-described settings will too.

Book Summary

A captivating rural romance featuring an indomitable young woman determined to save her family farm, and the city-boy who is not all he seems...Paige Quinn will let nothing and no one distract her from caring for her crippled father, Connor, and fighting for her remote, drought-stricken property, Banora Downs. Least of all a surprise farm-stay guest named Tait Cavanaugh, whose smooth words are as lethal as his movie-star smile. Except Paige can’t help noticing that, for a city-boy, Tait seems unexpectedly at home on the land. And he does ask a lot of questions…It doesn’t matter how much he helps out or how much laughter he brings into her life, she soon suspects he is harbouring a big secret – the real reason he has come to Banora Downs