Waiting for Matindi by Helen Hodgman

Recovering from an operation in the Australian countryside and Bondi Beach, the wry, ever-observant narrator of Helen Hodgman's beautifully written new novel waits as life washes over her like waves on the sand. Sensing that her lover is pulling away, yet feeling powerless in the face of this imminent loss, she is a woman in search of something that will define her life. Then, into her slowly shattering world comes the promise of change, or at the very least, distraction, with the imminent arrival of Matindi from Kenya. Beautiful, mysterious Matindi. The friend of a friend with an exotic past who becomes a human talisman, the intoxicating allure of expectation--or is she? Somewhere between truth and fiction, laughter and tears, wait the realities that will forever alter this tiny community of friends and lovers.