"It's like watching a milk bottle falling off a table. It rolls and falls in nightmarish slow motion and yet it seems unstoppable. There was a time when the family was whole, and a time when it hit the ground... In between is the moment when she should have caught it."
Novels with family and relationships at their centre - often with a mystery or thriller element - are Napier-based writer Charity Norman's favoured subject; and her fifth is another strong novel about the sometimes conflicting ties of family and faith.
Cassy, in New Zealand for a summer holiday, hitchhikes out of her boyfriend's life after an altercation. Tearful, yet determined, she jumps in a rusty van full of friendly - if oddly named - strangers. There's Sydney, Rome, Bali, Washington, Paris etc - but they seem harmless enough; they're smiling and welcoming and after a while don't seem like strangers at all.
Their base is a remote off-the-grid lakeside farming collective near Rotorua called Gethsemane, presided over by a charismatic, unstable leader called Justin. And it's where the newly vulnerable Cassy agrees to go to for a night or two.
Once there the beauty of the setting and the hospitality of her new companions intrigue her.
