Yet at the same time, as I sit here reflecting, there are things that I expected to happen that didn’t and there were some unexpected turns of events.įiona McCallum has quite sensitively addressed the issue of depression in men in rural areas as we see Damien struggling with a feeling that he’s at a loss to explain, and in a situation that scares him enough to seek help, even as he second guesses himself at every turn. Wattle Creek was quite predictable at times and I could see from very early on how the end would play out. I found the characters to be believable for the most part but there were times I was left wondering if things didn’t go too neatly to script. I grew to like these characters quite easily, I was drawn to the small town sense of community, and I identified with the small town gossip and the sense of everyone knowing your business.

I can’t explain that really, I know that there are only so many names and some are popular and some are more obscure and the character names have to fit the characters, and this one did, but I am still affected by names when they play a big part in my real life. It just took me a while to not get that jolt when reading his name. Don’t get me wrong, he was a well drawn character that I really came to like, and I certainly felt for. The first thing that did take some getting used to was the hero, I sometimes find it hard to get into a character who shares the name of someone close to me. In recent weeks there have been some fabulous rural releases that haven’t quite made it to my shelves yet and I think that’s what made me so itchy for a rural that I couldn’t get involved in anything else, so I knew it was time for Wattle Creek and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. Wattle Creek has been on my TBR pile for quite some time but because it’s been getting a little out of hand this one slipped out of sight for a while.

Fiona mccallum wattle creek series