The Cedar Tree

Written by Nicole Alexander

Narrated by Caz Prescott and Patrick Harvey

In the spring of 1949, Stella O'Riain flees her home - a sheep property on the barren edge of the Strzelecki Desert. She leaves behind the graves of her husband Joe and her baby daughter. With no money and limited options, Stella accepts her brother-in-law Harry's offer to live at the O'Riain cane farm in the Richmond Valley. There she hopes to get answers to the questions that plague her about her marriage. However Harry refuses to discuss Joe or the family's secrets, even forbidding her to speak to the owner of the neighbouring property. Nearly a century earlier in County Tipperary, Irish cousins Brandon and Sean O'Riain also fled their homes - as wanted criminals. By 1867, they are working as cedar-cutters in New South Wales's lush green Richmond Valley. But while Brandon embraces the opportunities this new country offers, Sean refuses to let go of the past. And one cousin is about to make a dangerous choice that will have devastating consequences down the generations . .

Spanning two centuries, Nicole Alexander's compelling new novel is a story of love and faith, destiny and betrayal, in a land as richly diverse as the secrets it keeps.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wavesound from W. F. Howes Ltd
• Release date: May 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781004001125

Nicole Alexander

The author is a Single woman always looking for love in the wrong places, overly tied to her persona as an engineer, SCUBA Instructor, Sea Captain. 15 years swimming, diving, boating in the Caribbean teaching and taking my diving family to favorite watering holes leads to me buying a little bar on a remote desert island until hurricanes and a drastic change in the country’s leadership blow me back to the real-world where I can’t help but try to make the world a better place. Someone’s gotta do it. Long accused of overactive imagination, as I remain stuck home alone, first with COVID and now with lingering debilitating injuries and inexplicable down-for-the-count head pangs, I’m turning years of fun-loving life into books. What’s a girl to do, but journal and go Listen to Music, except when one can’t.