A Matchbox Full of Pearls

Savvy, smart mouth, irrepressibly endearing Lola Harris leaves her drifting lifestyle to return to her foster child home in the small rural town of York, Western Australia for her carer's funeral. Once there, she faces the tough kid that broke her heart, in a town stalked by an unknown sex attacker, as childhood memories take on a sinister slant in light of a recent attack.

Left alone in the old house, Lola digs up her late carer's sketches which were done around the time a young woman was accused of drowning her lover's wife, three decades earlier. As she delves deeper into the events of 1971, she discovers her own connections to the murder, which throws her whole history into question.

 Distracted by the nocturnal activities of her strange neighbor, and guilty about secrets she kept for her best friend in high school, Lola's preoccupation with the past draws her unwittingly closer to those desperate to keep it hidden.

Set against the West Australian wheatbelt and the Avon River, Lola uncovers the identity of the sex attacker and is abducted and thrown in the boot of a car for a one-way trip to thick bushland. She must call on a lifetime of survival skills to execute a daring escape and find her way home.