FACT meets fiction in this romantic novel set in the rugged Victorian high country around Dargo.
The plot surrounds Emily Flanaghan as she fights the Victorian Government's plans to stop the mountain cattleman grazing the alpine national park (in real life, cattle were banned in 2005).
- The Cattleman's Daughter, by Rachael Treasure. Penguin, rrp $32.95
While this battle forms the political plot, The Cattleman's Daughter is as much about Emily's personal transformation.
She has a near-death experience after a horse-riding accident, leaves her philandering husband, Clancy, connects with a deeper spirituality linked to the landscape and embarks on a new romance.
Throughout the 400-plus pages, the description of the high country landscape and its people are one of the book's highlights.
The book is a great summer read - entertaining and not too demanding.
At times the characters are cliched and author Rachael Treasure does not attempt to hide her political agenda.
Cassy is a token angry vegan greenie stomping around in Doc Martens.
Government bureaucrats are clearly a source of disgust for Treasure; the head of the environment department is painted as bitter and myopic.
A beef and sheep farmer in Tasmania, Treasure has written three previous best-selling rural novels, including The Rouseabout.
