'The Three Of Us' by Kim Lock, Pan Macmillan, 2018

An absorbing love story is juxtaposed with its conservative, racist and repressed 1950s rural Australia setting. The secret, parallel world created by the main characters shows how the personal can provide solace and escape from a conformist social space.

As with ‘Like I Can Love’, Lock shows her strength in depicting personal relationships, especially between women through the stresses and experiences of life.

Be like the woman in the painting and get reading in 2018! Start with 'The Three Of Us'!

Be like the woman in the painting and get reading in 2018! Start with 'The Three Of Us'!

With her evocative and descriptive prose Lock infuses the book with the ambiance of a languid summers day. The atmosphere and joyful, earthy domesticity depicts strong female alliance – as powerfully employed in ‘Picnic At Hanging Rock’ and the ‘Virgin Suicides’ – that challenges and defies the times.

Lock has an uncanny ability to pick themes that gel with the zeitgeist: ‘Like I Can Love’ coincided with the public demand for action on the domestic violence epidemic and ‘The Three of Us’ comes after voters declared ‘Love Is Love' and dragged the government to Marriage Equality. ‘The Three Of Us’ is a welcome tonic of love in a world awash with hate, division and ignorance. ‘The Three Of Us’ celebrates tolerance, acceptance and love, in all its forms.