September Moon

Alternately poignant, uplifting, and laugh-out-loud funny, this is an enchanting tale of love, self-forgiveness, and the joyous discovery that it's never too late to become what you were meant to be.Stranded in Adelaide, South Australia, after the death of her former employer, Englishwoman Amanda Davenport is compelled by her rapidly dwindling resources to accept a position as governess on a sheep station in the wilds of the Australian outback. Frightened by the raw desolation she discovers there, Amanda is desperate to earn her passage home to England. Yet against her will, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to both the strange, haunting land and to the easy smile and rugged sensuality of the down-to-earth man who has made it his home.Struggling to bring up three irrepressible, motherless children on an isolated station plagued by all the hardships and dangers of the Flinders Ranges in the 1860s, Patrick O'Reilly thinks the last thing he needs in his life is a prim and proper English gentlewoman. But it isn't long before O'Reilly begins to suspect that Miss Davenport is not exactly what she seems . . .Rich with the memorable characters and flawless sense of time and place for which Candice Proctor is acclaimed, SEPTEMBER MOON is a heartwarming story of resilience and passion set against the harshly beautiful and untamed landscape of the Australian outback. . . . a consummate storyteller. -Publishers Weekly . . . one of the best romance writers in the business today -The Literary TimesFrom the original 1999 Random House edition: In this, her third novel, the multitalented author of NIGHT IN EDEN returns to the glorious setting of nineteenth-century Australia, to the ancient, primal vistas of the outback, to a land as untamed as a man's soul . . . Patrick O'Reilly loves life in the wilderness. All he needs is his land, his work, and the company of the children he adores. The last thing he wants is the prim and proper Englishwoman who arrives to care for his unruly children. Amanda Davenport seems unprepared for the harshness of the place O'Reilly calls home, and yet he finds himself drawn to this proud woman and the fire he knows exists beneath her refined exterior.Accepting a joy as governess is the only way Amanda can earn passage back to her beloved England and away from this country she hates-rugged, uncivilized, intoxicating, like Patrick O'Reilly himself. Despite her fears, Amanda gradually awakens to the shimmering heat of this wild primitive land, to the children she can't help but love, and to this magnificent man whose raw sensuality dares to expose her own undeniable passion . . .…