Book Review

A Girl’s Guide to the Outback by Jessica Kate

As an Australian living in Melbourne, I always feel a bit sad that there aren’t more romances set in my part of the world. While there are plenty of amazing Australian romance authors out there, it seems that there isn’t much of a market for romances set in Australia…and so our local authors write stories set in the UK or Europe or the US – exotic for this reviewer, but rather a pity for everyone else. So when I saw A Girl’s Guide to the Outback on NetGalley, and realised that the author herself is Australian (significantly decreasing the chances of everything being too Fair Dinkum Bonzer Crikey Mate for words), I snapped it up immediately.

(I should note that when I say ‘my part of the world’, Australia is a pretty big country and rural Queensland could hardly be more distant, geographically and culturally/politically, from Melbourne. But then, romances with Australian urban settings really are unicorn-like in their rarity, and there’s a whole conversation to be had about what counts as ‘real Australia’ and how this affects romance novels written with an Australian backdrop. It’s still fun to read a book where Christmas is heat and drought, not snow and ice.)

A Girl’s Guide to the Outback describes itself as an Inspirational Romantic Comedy. This is a new subgenre to me – I’ve read a handful of Inspies, but not many, because my Inner Theologian tends to wake up and get argumentative and cranky, which is not what I look for in a romance. Anyway, I didn’t know that Inspirational Romantic Comedy was a thing, so there may well be tropes I’m unfamiliar with, and I apologise in advance if I’ve missed something crucial.

Having said all that, I enjoyed this book quite a bit, mostly because of the very strong sense of place. The author’s webpage tells me that she grew up on a cattle farm, and it shows; the cattle farm – or perhaps, the struggle of keeping a farm going in the current era – is almost a character in its own right, and I really felt for Jules, who was determined to keep the family heritage even as it became increasingly clear that this just wasn’t possible. A farm is very vulnerable to bad meteorological luck, and we have that in spades here.

(Incidentally, towards the end of the story there is a fire, because I am pretty sure there is a law that you can’t write a novel set in rural Australia that doesn’t have a fire in it. I’ll be honest, I found this hard to read given the current bushfire situation in Australia, and it left me feeling very weird about the story. It’s absolutely not the fault of the author – it made perfect sense for the story – but I feel like bushfires or anything bushfire adjacent come with a trigger warning for Australians right now.)

To the plot! The story begins with Kimberly working as the business manager for Wildfire Youth Ministries in in Virginia. She’s very passionate about her work, and wants to expand the ministry by setting up a drop-in centre for youth in Chicago. However, while she is extremely good at the business side of things, she is less adept at building the sort of warm relationships required for a pastoral role, and is well aware that the one with the real gift for working with young people is Sam, the youth pastor, with whom she has an antagonistic relationship. And Sam doesn’t want to expand. He’s had a business fail before, with distressing consequences to his family, and he is not willing to take risks with this one. In fact, right now, he’s more concerned about the family farm back in Australia – his sister, Jules, has just informed him that it’s in financial trouble and she needs help.

With Sam’s return to Australia, Wildfire is struggling, and Kim is asked to try to bring him back on board. She strikes a deal with Jules – she will spend six weeks doing an assessment of the farm from a business perspective and make recommendations, and in return, Sam will return to the US to find his replacement. Both Jules and Kim hope that once back in the US, he will stay – Kim, for the sake of the ministry, and Jules because she thinks that Kim is just the person to make her little brother happy.

So city girl Kim flies to Australia to spend six weeks in rural Queensland on a cattle farm. It’s a good ‘fish out of water’ set up, but Kim actually settles in pretty quickly, and befriends Jules and the local community – she’s very hungry for family, which is part of it, and evidently she’s not afraid of hard work and insufficient sleep (spiders are another matter). But the farm’s financial problems will not be solved with a few tweaks to how things are run – larger changes are required, and these are just the sorts of changes that Sam is unwilling to make.

I liked the main quartet of characters a lot. They felt very real, in their insecurities and preoccupations and complicated family dynamics, and in their occasionally single-minded approaches to their goals. There was also a lot of sweetness to the story, and the characters’ faith felt like a natural part of them.

The one thing I didn’t like so much was…the romance. Either of the romances, really, since there is a secondary romance between Jules and the local vet, Mick. I honestly felt as though Kimberly’s relationship with Jules was stronger than her relationship with Sam – or indeed, than Jules’ relationship with Mick. Perhaps this was because both the romances in the story were enemies-to-lovers, and the antagonism took a fair while to resolve, whereas Kimberly and Jules liked each other and formed a sisterly bond almost immediately. Also, while Sam was clearly a sweet person who was just unfortunately kind of terrible at dealing with Kimberly, Mick came across as a bit of an alphahole, particularly early in the book, and I felt as though Jules could do better.

When they aren’t fighting, Sam and Kimberly make a good team, and there is a nice sense of play and tenderness in their relationship. They have very different skill-sets and approaches to life, but you can see how well they would work together when they aren’t pressing each other’s buttons. Alas, they are extraordinarily good at pressing each other’s buttons, and thus there is quite a lot of fighting. Sam and Kimberly strike me as an example of two people with incompatible insecurities, which means that they are constantly saying and doing things that upset each other. Sam blames himself for his father’s death from overwork after Sam’s business failed; he also thinks of himself as stupid because he has dyslexia which wasn’t diagnosed until he was in high school, and he dropped out after Year 10 (the earliest stage at which you can leave school in Australia – most students continue on to Year 12, which allows them to attend university; Year 10 means finishing school aged 15-16 and taking an apprenticeship). He is risk averse and lacks confidence in himself, and he finds Kimberly’s brilliance and entrepreneurial spirit hard to cope with. Kimberly, for her part, was raised by her affectionate but flaky dad until he died when she was nine, at which point her emotionally distant (and, frankly, rather cruel) mother took over the parenting. So she is confident in her work, but considers herself abrasive and unloveable, and whenever Sam rejects her ideas (which is pretty much all the time) she takes that as a personal rejection. Sam, on the other hand, goes into a shame spiral every time he makes a mistake, and tends to assume that Kimberly is looking down on him.

Much therapy is needed.

But this is an Inspie, so we have God instead.

Which is as good a time as any to talk about how God and faith are represented in this book.

To my mind (and bearing in mind that I’m not an Inspie reader, though I am a Christian, of the very liberal variety), this was done well, and with a fairly light touch. Because both the hero and heroine work in ministry, God and faith are naturally going to be part of their thinking (though in fact, there is little mention of God in the first half of the book). But this is no fire and brimstone God – indeed, Jules explicitly rejects any idea that the natural disasters late in the book are a ‘sign’ or God’s way of telling her what to do. Instead, God is invoked as someone who loves the characters even when they find it hard to love themselves, and when things get hard, the characters remind each other of this. (My inner cranky theologian was pleasantly surprised.) Here’s Sam, trying to comfort Kimberly after a conversation with her mother.

God, what can I even say to help this? No words came. If only he could convey the truth of how much God wanted her as easily as he could lend his warmth. “You have a right to feel grief over that. And I know the phrase sounds trite, but God loves you. To Him, there was nothing about you that was unexpected or less than delightful.”

I also appreciated that the book was quite egalitarian and free from regressive gender roles in its approach to the characters and their issues. Kimberly is shown as being really good at what she does, and her drive and willingness to take risks and have faith in the future are shown to be something that Sam lacks and greatly needs. Yes, she needs to learn to trust Sam’s affection for her (though, honestly, I don’t blame her for having difficulties, he’s all over the place), but there is no suggestion that she isn’t Sam’s equal or that she shouldn’t be in a leadership role. It’s Sam who needs to grow and change the most. Jules likewise needs to change; she is prideful and independent to the point of stupidity at times, but this would be the case regardless of her gender – she has been so focused on saving the farm no matter what that she hasn’t had many opportunities to behave differently.

I will say, I wasn’t taken with Jules’ romance with Mick, the local vet. They seem to have been former sweethearts who split up because Jules wanted to keep the family farm going and he has his vet practice, and these two things aren’t compatible geographically. I couldn’t quite make sense of this, because early in the book he is living only 3km away, and perhaps practicing in town, which is 40 minutes away, neither of which seem like insurmountable distances to me. But Jules also seems to resent him leaving his father’s farm to work on the coast, and the coast turns out to be five hours away, so I don’t know quite what is going on here, or precisely where he lives at this point. Also, Mick is such an alpha git early in the book, and while he does improve as the book continues (and has some very sweet moments), I was a bit turned off by him. Since Jules was my favourite character in the book, this part just didn’t work for me.

Back to something I did love, which was the language in this book, specifically the use of Australian slang and dialect. It’s so hard to get this right, and it’s grating to read novels where all the Australian characters think that everything is bonzer. But equally, for an international audience… Australian English really is different, in ways that a native speaker like me won’t always notice, and that’s going to get annoying fast, too. Kate did a lovely job here of keeping the slang and the Australianisms very real, and having an American heroine provided a very neat excuse to translate these for a wider audience. I may be projecting, but it seemed to me that there was a real sense of relish in introducing an American audience to important terms like ‘ute’, ‘firie’ and ‘thongs’; to the rules of backyard cricket; and to the correct usage of Vegemite (spread very thinly on toast, cheese optional. I’m not entirely convinced about adding sliced avocado, but I’ll allow it). Honestly, I so enjoyed the Australiana in this book. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it done with so much affection and thoroughness before.

Once again, I find myself struggling with how to grade this book. On the one hand, the setting was fantastic and the characters were convincing. Inspies are still not my cup of tea – and it’s really hard to assess something well when you don’t really know the rules of the subgenre – but I liked the approach that was taken with regard to the religious themes in the book. There was a lot here that was really excellent, and I enjoyed reading it. (Having said that, it’s hard not to look at all the meteorological disasters on the farm through the lens of climate change right now, which gave the whole book a patina of tragedy for me.)

Alas, despite all of the good stuff, I felt that the central romance was lacking – and for a romance novel, that’s a bit of a problem. Too much of the book was spent going backwards and forwards between Sam and Kimberly getting closer, and then being pushed apart again either by their own insecurities, or the various catastrophes occurring on the farm, or a combination of both, and this was only resolved very late in the book. I liked their humour and playfulness, which at least give me hope that they will be happy eventually (though I feel like some therapy wouldn’t do them any harm at all), but I’m not quite sure they were there by the end of the book.

I think overall I’d give this a C plus. If you want to really get a feel for rural Australia, and don’t mind some God-talk in your romance, this book is hard to beat. But when it comes down to it, I read romances for the relationships, and I just wasn’t quite sold on these ones.

I find that I can’t finish this post about a novel set in rural Australia without at least briefly mentioning the bushfires that are currently devastating our country. At the time of writing this, we are still early in our fire season, and it’s terrifying to reflect on how much is on fire and how much longer we have to wait until the weather is likely to change and give us some relief. If you would like to donate to help our firies or with bushfire relief, there is a list of charities here.

And for our animal-loving readers, here is a link to a blog post by my amazing sister-in-law which focuses on charities that are helping injured animals right now. Lots of options to choose from, and not a single heartbreaking picture of an injured animal in sight.

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A Girl’s Guide to the Outback by Jessica Kate

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  1. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know—or haven’t already read—but for the non-Australians amongst us, there’s a series called Outback Brides and a subsequent series called Outback Brides of Wirralong which revolves around a former sheep station that has now become a destination wedding venue. I haven’t read all the books in the series (they’re written by different authors), but the first one, MAGGIE’S RUN by Kelly Hunter was my favorite book read-but-not-published in 2019. It’s a beautifully-written, melancholy, and emotional book about the woman who inherits the sheep station and turns it into a wedding venue. I’ve never visited Australia, but I spent an afternoon entranced after doing a Google Image search for “Outback Weddings.”

    I’m also guessing you’re familiar with Eve Dangerfield. ACT YOUR AGE & NOT YOUR SHOE SIZE, along with the first two Silver Daughters books (SO WILD and SO STEADY, apparently the final book of the series will remain unwritten) are set in the Melbourne area.

  2. Lea Day says:

    back in the 80’s I think I read a ton of books set in Oz by Lucy Walker, and the one I have liked best has been Sarah Mayberry

  3. Georgina says:

    Thanks, Catherine! I really enjoyed this thoughtful review.

    As an Australian, I’d love to see more urban-set contemporary romances. I only know of a couple of authors, and would definitely be up for some recs if you or anybody else has some.

    I can recommend Open Hearts by Eve Dangerfield, if you like femdom. It’s set in Melbourne. That novel first came on my radar in the thread here on Sex Puppies, and Dean is a delight. I also like how unapologetically Australian Dangerfield’s writing is — she uses a lot of Australian turns of phrase and trusts the audience to work it out.

    There’s also Amy Andrews. I thought she wrote only sports romances (not my thing), but I see from her website her back catalogue is a lot bigger than I realised. Will have to check some of these out.

  4. Georgina says:

    Hah! I’m pretty sure it was you, DiscoDollyDeb, who recommended Open Hearts.

  5. DiscoDollyDeb says:

    @Georgina: Yes, ‘twas I! I love Eve Dangerfield and was saddened to read that she has decided to stop writing romances; she’s switching to another genre and will no longer publish under the Eve Dangerfield name. Alas, that means her Silver Daughters series will remain incomplete.

  6. Lepiota says:

    This was particularly useful for me regarding the commentary on inspies, even if limited – a year or two ago, I’d downloaded a spy adventure romance audiobook before flying somewhere… without realizing it was an inspirational. So there I am, dozing on the the plan, with a gradual “Wait, *what* am I reading?!”

    I did end up both finishing and enjoying the book – but partly in an anthropological sense, as it centered a take on religion and type of relationship which is very far from my own preferences!

  7. Empress of Blandings says:

    @DiscoDollyDeb I didn’t know she had a new novella out but now I do and have one-clicked. I really like her books and am sad she’s moving away from romance.

  8. My middle daughter lives in Melbourne! Such a beautiful city.

    Can I also recommend the Coorah Creek books and the new one, The Lawson Sisters, by Janet Gover, who is another Aussie who writes very ‘real’ Aussie romances, set in the Outback.

  9. Nina says:

    You guys are lifesavers. I am moving from the States to Australia in six weeks and I have been trying to fins great reads to get my psyched. My TBR pile just grew exponentially!

  10. Stephanie Scott says:

    This sounds fun – I just added it to my reading list.

  11. Kareni says:

    Thanks for your thoughtful post, Catherine Heloise.

  12. Sunflower says:

    Thank you for your review. I think this might be the right spot to mention an upcoming release – AUSTRALIA: A Romance Anthology – that includes stories by authors like Penny Reid and Kylie Scott, with the proceeds set to go relief funds and a firefighter charity in Australia.

  13. Shem says:

    As a Melbourne person and thus surely a worshiper of AFL (I jest) surely you are almost obligated to have read Sean Kennedy’s Tiger and Devils? (M/M AFL star falls for a football fan)

  14. JenniferH says:

    I also live in Melbourne (Sarah – I had the pleasure of hearing you speak at the Melbourne Writer’s Festival a few year’s ago). I second the recommendation for the Sarah Mayberry books set in Melbourne – and Sean Kennedy – both have a real sense of place. Stefanie London also has a series set in Melbourne. I haven’t read Eve Dangerfield but will add her to my TBR list.

  15. Ana says:

    There’s a YA romance author called Elizabeth Stevens who is Australian. It was from her books that I found out what a “ute” is

  16. Hi all, what a lovely lot of recommendations! I know a few of the authors, but not the others, and I am making notes. (I’m also planning to attend the Australian Romance Readers’ Association gathering in March, notebook in hand). I’ve definitely read Amy Andrews and Sarah Mayberry, but have somehow missed Eve Dangerfield.

    @Nina – welcome! I hope you like it here! May I recommend this https://www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/bunnings-snags-and-the-meaning-of-girt-42-ways-to-tell-if-you-re-australian-20200121-p53tam.html (funny because it is far too true).

    @Sunflower – thank you for the recommendation. I shall certainly be ordering that anthology (I feel like about 50% of my purchases at present have some sort of fire-related fundraiser attached to them…).

    @Shem – I’m a very bad Melburnian, because I prefer soccer to football (my Italian heritage), though I will watch cricket any day of the week. Or indeed, every day of the week, if it’s a Test Match. I’ll give Sean Kennedy a look.

    Of course, my favourite Melbourne-based novels are Kerry Greenwood’s Corinna Chapman mysteries, which are full of baking and cats and the odd political in-joke, but they aren’t really romances…

  17. SB Sarah says:

    @JenniferH: oh, the panel with Jane Caro? I still have no idea what I was doing on that panel but that was an extraordinary night for me. I’m so pleased you were there! The Melbourne Writers Festival was incredible, as was Brisbane. I miss Oz!

  18. Zyva says:

    A sidenote in case people are cribbing Australian factoids for their works:
    The Year 10 completion requirememt slash low age limit to compulsory schooling has been history for about a decade/generation or so in states other than Queensland. (‘Schooling’ is now inclusive of tech courses and highed ed.)
    They’ve just upped the minimum age to from 15 to 17 in Victoria and scratched the alternative reqs.

    (Btw This was pointed out to be inequitable to grade-skipping gifted kids during the 2011 Victorian Inquiry. It denies them the opportunity to have a gap year after graduating, and it’s really impratical for travelling to school and work when you can’t get a driver’s license before 18 in most states.
    The measure may have started off generally inequitable, actually. The conservative governments were kicking poor families off child support payments for non-attendance. Maybe they wanted to bolster their case for ‘should be in school’ by decree. Much easier than dealing with bullied kids taking mental health days, young carers, etc.)

  19. @Zyva – ack! I had no idea that had changed! Shows how long it’s been since I was at school / knew any school-age kids. That doesn’t really sound like an improvement.

  20. Giulia Skye says:

    Hi, I really enjoyed reading this review and will buy the book based on it as ever since my backpacking days, I love Australia. I live in England but had great fun writing my debut novel, which is out soon, as I’ve set in the Kimberley region of north WA. I’ve read Janet Gover’s Coorah Creek series, as well as Kelly Hunter’s Maggie’s Run, all of which were thoroughly enjoyable. It’s great to get more recommendations of books set in Oz, especially by Aussie authors. Thanks for posting this review. Giulia x

  21. Zyva says:

    @Catherine Heloise

    To be fair, it’s very hard to keep track of if it’s going to vary wildly across states as well as time. Personally, I have bits and bobs of updates come my way through personal networks – but still, I got most of that update from checking up on my beleaguered neurodiverse identity group.

    And the earlier data about some related local ed equity issues from sociologists doing interviews. (I would spontaneously combust if I tried to ask awkward questions involving people’s finances, especially for no professional reason. Not equipped.)

    I suspect it was a bit of a fait accompli for the majority, raising the compulsory schooling age. Seen the stats: kids were staying in school even before that at much higher rates, choosing to, because they didn’t want to be in the rising youth unemployment figures.
    But it’s a sorry sight when the powerbrokers reckon they can take advantage of a bad situation and further box in the already marginalised on top of everything.

    It’s ugly enough when they can’t drive people further down financially. For instance, there was on “Australian Story” the Bradman granddaughter who dropped out terribly young due to bullying. Horrible situation and it was a desperate measure, but at least it didn’t break the budget.

  22. mktoronto says:

    Pretty sure some of Joanne Dannon’s books are set in urban Australia, for those looking for it.

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