This is a story of mothers and daughters. It tells the story of three woman over three decades. The first is Aurora who lives in outback Australia. Aurora's brother is killed by a lightning strike at a very young age and followiing that event Esther, her mother, retreats into silence for most of the time and Aurora suffers greatly as a result. As a young adult , seemingly unable to form lasting attachments, she travels to Dublin to find out more about her father's family. There she comes in contact with Rose, a pregnant and confused sixteen year old who has been abandoned by her mother as a very young child and adopted out. Rose comes to live with her and has the baby to whom Aurora forms a very strong attachment. Through the clues that she has, Rose is finally able to track down her real mother. She is able to reconcile the relationship with her, and overcome the difficulties with her adoptive mother which caused to her to run away from home and seek refuge with Aurora in the house where she thought her real mother had lived. Through reaching out to Rose, and rediscovering the joys of maternal love Aurora is able to retun to Australia and pick up her own life with some hope for the future. Just an average rataing for this. Wasn't a great story to me. ( )