Judith Clarke’s new novel for young adults, The Winds of Heaven, is a moving story about the strength and difficulty of friendship, and how accidents of birth, family and situation can combine to overwhelm the brightest spirit.

On her first trip to Lake Conapaira in 1952, ten-year-old Clementine meets her cousin Fan for the first time. Fan is a whirlwind: beautiful, impulsive and imaginative. Clementine is entranced by Fan’s strength and liveliness, and the two girls quickly become friends. But Fan’s childhood is a world away from Clementine’s cautious but loving family home. Stranded with her violent mother amid the prejudices of a country town, the beautiful Fan is labelled ‘stupid’ at school, and regularly beaten and emotionally abused by her depressive mother. Her sister has left home, and her father disappeared long ago. Fan fights for happiness, and fights hard. She has her miyan, or spiritual guardian, an elderly Aborigine who lives in the bush and tells her stories. He calls her Yirigaa, ‘Morning Star’, and is the only positive adult influence in her life. Clementine wants to stay with Fan, but the holiday draws to an end and she must return home, leaving Fan with her mother in the house that smelled of ‘anger and hatred and disappointment and jagged little fears’.