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Searching for Sylvia - Joanna Stephen-Ward

Thrilled to be part of the Blog tour for this novel.


Synopsis

Sylvia has been missing for thirty years. Will her daughters ever find her?


Tordorrach is 70,000 acres of drought stricken land in the Australian outback. Why do a group of wealthy people from London want to buy it?


Shamus, the owner of Tordorrach, lives in poverty. His homestead is derelict and he is heavily in debt. The new owners run Outback Experience holidays on Tordorrach. Shamus becomes one of the gardeners, and he and his wife Mary move to a comfortable cabin on the property. Why does he hate the new owners so much that he plans to murder one of them?


The idyllic life of the new owners is shattered when the body of a woman is found buried on Tordorrach. Forensics find a bullet in her body. Who was she? And who murdered her?


My Review


Searching for Sylvia was a lovely read that took me across the Australian outback. As I have visited Australia I found the descriptions of the area's so beautiful and very relate-able.


This is a novel with a mystery at its core, while I don't want to give away any more spoilers, we already know from the title that Sylvia is missing. This mystery and the devastating loss this causes, echos throughout the book, mixing with the stories and emotions of such believable characters. I felt so many emotions myself for Sylvia's daughter's and how they coped.


I loved the passion in this story, the feeling of love and hope battling against all odds. In the end this was a very very enjoyable read that I was lucky enough to be asked to review and its a privilege to close out the blog tour for.



Author Bio

Joanna Stephen-Ward was born in the Australian outback, and grew up in Melbourne. Her school days were spent dreaming about being an opera singer or a writer. To the exasperation of her parents and teachers she spent her final year sitting at the back of the classroom writing a novel set in WW2.


When she left school she went to an opera school where she was taught drama, movement and language pronunciation and had small roles in the workshop productions. She was not good enough to become a professional opera singer, but the seeds of her novel Vissi d'arte were sown.


She left Australia and spent a year travelling around Europe and the UK. While working in outpatients for the NHS she met Peter and they married in 1985. They lived in Richmond Surrey and she worked at The National Archives, an enthralling place for anyone interested in history or crime.


Having been brought up as a lonely only child, she was astonished to discover in 2010 that she was one of eight children. She and her sister had last been together on a verandah in the outback when they were babies. They had a joyous reunion in Cornwall in 2012.


Joanna has written seven novels and is working on her eighth.



Purchase Links



Social Media Links

https://www.facebook.com/joanna.stephenward

https://twitter.com/OperaLover12

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/28527503

https://outbackwriter.blogspot.com


Blog Tour




 

Thank you to the Publisher and Author for sending me an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this novel and for the opportunity to review these works.

All reviews are my own unbiased opinion.



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