Beneath the bloodwood tree

A tightly-woven tale of ghosts, death, love, and dislocation, Beneath the Bloodwood Tree is the unsettling and powerful new novel by The Australian/Vogel Award winner, Julienne van Loon.Now she listens, perhaps unwisely, to a prickling beneath her skin. It's a sensation she hasn't felt since she was a child. There's some kind of presence in the air, something intangible.Pia Ricci has come to Port Hedland to free her life of complications and distractions. But when Pia discovers a bundle of money and men's clothing buried on the outskirts of town, she has an uncomfortable feeling that things are about o change. Is it connected to the foreigner Joachim, a new arrival in town? Or to the ghosts in her own past? As Pia and Joachim grow closer, Pia can see he has secrets. The widow Barnes, one of Joachim's nursing charges, also holds secrets, and they're coming to the surface. As these three misfits come together, their world starts to change in ways that they could never have expected.Set against the vast inhospitable landscape of the Pilbara, this is a powerful, tightly-woven desert tale of ghosts, grief and love.