Danny Dawson lives in the middle of the Australian outback. His older brother Jonny was killed in an accident last year but no-one ever talks about it. And now it"s time for the annual muster. The biggest event of the year on the cattle station, and a time to sort the men from the boys. But this year things will be different: because Jonny"s gone and Danny"s determined to prove he can fill his brother"s shoes; because their fourteen-year-old sister is pregnant; because it"s getting hotter and hotter and the rains won"t come; because cracks are beginning to show . . . When Danny"s mum admits she can"t cope, the family hires a housegirl to help out - a wide-eyed English backpacker. She doesn"t have a clue what she"s let herself in for. And neither do they.