The eponymous opening story is the most assured, blending Treasure’s gift for fantasy and romance with a ripping yarn of a raging bushfire bearing down on a couple on horseback. ‘Grandma’s Gift’ moves effectively even further beyond fantasy into the realms of the supernatural. For the most part, however, these stories are more about the messy realities of life on the farm, told from the point of view of women dealing with fractious cows and unruly husbands.

Treasure treats horses and other animals with reverence, and reserves her humour and satire for people, with their capacity for treachery and plain stupidity. In a hilarious send-up of her fictional country girls’ obsession with big tractors, the scene in ‘The Tractor Factor’ where cow handlers come to blows in the show ring is a rural version of Strictly Ballroom. But the playful sense of humour that works so well in the happier stories undermines the more macabre ones.

Rural issues are woven into the stories, in particular the takeover of cattle grazing land by national parks. The country–city divide is treated most sensitively in ‘Evie’s Garden Dreaming’, where the author’s imagination takes you beyond city life to explore the possibility of a better world.

At her best, and within the framework of the modern romance tale, Treasure is a storyteller in the tradition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: down-to-earth, bawdy, satirical, and entertaining.

CONTENTS: OCTOBER 2011