Fran hates her hometown, and she thought she?d escaped. But her dad is ill and needs care. Her relationship is over and she hates her dead-end job in the city, anyway. She returns home to nurse her dying father, her distant teenage daughter in tow for the weekends. There, in the sleepy town of Ash Mountain, childhood memories prick at her fragile self-esteem, she falls in love for the first time and her demanding dad tests her patience, all in the unbearable heat of an Australian summer. As past friendships and rivalries are renewed and new ones forged, Fran?s tumultuous home life is the least of her worries, when old crimes rear their heads and a devastating bushfire ravages the town and all of its inhabitants ? Simultaneously a warm, darkly funny portrait of small-town life - and a woman and a land in crisis - and a shocking and truly distressing account of a catastrophic event that changes things forever, Ash Mountain is a heart-breaking slice of domestic noir and a disturbing disaster thriller that you will never forget ?.