Adelaide Hills Christmas Eve 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day beside a creek in the
grounds of the grand and mysterious mansion a local delivery man makes a terrible discovery. A
police investigation is called and the small town of Tumbeela becomes embroiled in one of the
most shocking and perplexing murder cases in the history of South Australia. Sixty years later
Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for almost twenty
years she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet.
A phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney where her beloved grandmother Stella
who raised Jess when her mother could not has suffered a fall and been raced to the hospital.
Stella has always been a vibrant and strong presence: decisive encouraging young beyond her
years. When Jess visits her in the hospital she is alarmed to find her grandmother frail and
confused it's even more alarming to hear from Stella's housekeeper that Stella had been
distracted in the weeks before her accident and that she fell on the steps to the attic - the
one place Jess was forbidden from playing when she was small. At a loose end in Stella's house
Jess does some digging of her own. In Stella's bedroom she discovers a true crime book
chronicling the police investigation into a long-buried tragedy: the Turner Family Tragedy of
Christmas Eve 1959. It is only when Jess skims through the book that she finds a shocking
connection between her own family and this once-infamous crime - a crime that has never been
resolved satisfactorily. And for a journalist without a story a cold case might be the best
distraction she can find . . . An epic novel that spans generations Homecoming asks what we
would do for those we love and how we protect the lies we tell. It explores the power of
motherhood the corrosive effects of tightly held secrets and the healing nature of truth.
Above all it is a beguiling and immensely satisfying novel from one of the finest writers
working today.
