OMG, just OMG. Maybe I need a What the Heck Did I Just Read shelf. I've read Margaret Way before and liked her but wow. Here are a couple of random samples

"McCabe's Kingdom! She said with a funny touch of irony."It moves inexorably over all of us. It's your whole existence. I want to escape it, yet somehow I can't. The fierce seasons, the cattle, the cloud castles, the spirit of the bush. Corroboree and dawn rituals and inhuman chants. And those lovely curving mahogany banisters. Why use the stairs? The house."

She tried to frame an answer. What answer did he want? It seemed he had no need for one, could not have listened to her in any event. Lions might have been roaring outside the cage, waiting to get in, but she didn't care . It was worth annihilation to be trapped in a labyrinth of impossibly blossoming emotions, the most willful challenges that she met and rose to, bewitched and bewitching , set on a brilliant vocation. To give him what he wanted. Warm, silken, her black hair caught in the neck of his shirt, brushing his face. The cool scented darkness was shimmering, breaking all sense of discipline. Of time and place. She no longer knew where she was. Only with whom was important - Thorn.

Just WTF? The whole book was like wading through syrup. I kind of felt like I was reading an affected pretentious play from the 1950s. They all talked like they were declaiming lines all the time on an off Broadway play.

Best thing about this book was the cover illustration. ( )