Wildflower Hill

In Freeman's debut novel, Emma Blaxland-Hunter, a prima ballerina from London, must re-evaluate her life after doctors declare her knee unfit for dancing. At the behest of her mother, Emma returns home to Sydney, where she discovers her affluent and loving grandmother, Beattie Blaxland, has left her an inheritance: Wildflower Hill, an old sheep farm in Tasmania. When Emma settles in temporarily to clean out Wildflower Hill and sell it, she discovers a photo of her grandmother with a mysterious child. Determined to discover the girl's identity, Emma is pulled closer to Wildflower Hill's sordid history and ultimately, her grandmother's untidy secrets. In this sentimental narrative, readers learn the answers to Emma's questions just as she begins to ask them, which makes for a fairly predictable read. The novel's strength instead lies in Freeman's complex characters%E2%80%94capable of love and hate, shame and redemption. Both Beattie and Emma find themselves having to start over, and it is for these two women that readers cheer and sympathize. (Aug.)