From Down Under by Meryl Brown Tobin
MUSE MONDAY
Please welcome Meryl Brown Tobin to Muse Monday on Discover... She's writing from a place I know I'd love to visit. Enjoy!
With its remoteness,turquoise sea, rugged red sandstone cliffs and kilometres long stretch of whitesands, Broome is a colorful exotic place to visit in Outback Western Australia thatgoes back to the Dreamtime. It became a pearling town from the late 1800s untilthe mid 1900s. Peopled by Aborigines, Japanese, Chinese, Malayans, Filipinos,Koepangers (East Indonesians) and Europeans, it was a truly cosmopolitan town.During World War2, it was turned into a military garrison. Now a top tourist destination in Australia attracting thousands oftourists each year, it is famous for its pristine waters, beaches,wildlife, tropical climate and spectacular colours.
Because ofits beauty, history and remoteness and my family and I had visited it a numberof times and loved it, I chose Broome in 1986 as my setting for ‘BroomeEnigma’. On our first visit, in 1970,the caravan park had a sewerage problem and we decided Cable Beach, thenisolated and not developed, was the best place offered as an alternative. Apart from a young couple, my family and Ihad the iconic vast white sandy beach and turquoise ocean to ourselves.
On aworking holiday in Australia's cosmopolitan Outback town of Broome in 1986,Jodie, a young book designer and artist is open to romance and adventure.At the holiday villagewhere she is staying, she meets Joe, a young man who works there. Despite thestrong attraction between them, the many unknowns about his earlier life keepthem apart. To try to uncover his mysterious past, they travel to Perth andback to Broome and are drawn into not only bizarre but also dangeroussituations.
Is Joe the person she thinks he is, or ishe some alter ego? Can Jodie and Joe stop their relationship from developinguntil they have answers and know if he is free to love her?
A big gust of wind rocked the van and flung Jodie
hard against Joe. He pushed her off.
“Joe, it’s me, Jodie! Wake up, wake up!”
“Jodie, is that you?” He threw his arms around her
and buried his head in her chest.
She brushed his hair back from his sweating face.
“Take it easy, Joe. Take deep breaths. It’s okay. It’s
going to be okay.”
He stopped shaking and pulled back from her.
“What’s happening?”
“It’s the cyclone. Don’t you remember?”
Another huge gust shook the van and sent Jodie
sprawling on Joe’s bunk and into the wall.
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Meryl Brown Tobinis an Australian writer who writes fiction and non-fiction for adults andchildren, poetry, educational puzzles and cartoons. She has had 21 bookspublished and hundreds of poems, puzzles, short stories, travel and otherarticles, and cartoons published in more than 150 print and digitalpublications in Australia and overseas. Her debut novel, ‘Broome Enigma’, aromantic suspense novel, was published by The Wild Rose Press in November,2023. Details: https://sites.google.com/view/merylbrowntobin-author and Meryl Tobin - Society of Women Writers Victoria (swwvic.org.au).
