The Secrets of the Huon Wren

A deeply moving novel of love and loss set in the majestic mountains of Tasmania's Central Highlands.

Senior journalist Allira is writing a story for Folk magazine when she meets Nora, a nursing home resident with dementia and a doll cradled lovingly in her arms. Bit by bit, Nora reveals details about her younger life as a spirited teenage girl living beneath the Great Western Tiers in Tasmania’ s heartland, of stitching linings into coffins, of her illicit romance with a charming Polish-German migrant, and of a family torn apart by heartbreak.

As the two women form an unlikely friendship, Allira becomes helplessly drawn into the old woman’ s story. When Allira opens up to Nora about her own recent tragedy, the secrets embedded in the story of a carved Huon pine wren become the key to a life-changing discovery from the past.

It is a revelation that finally fills in the missing pieces of Nora’ s history and has the power to set them both free.