Janita Cunnington has been writing for much of her life, mostly under the desk — verse, stories, articles, musings when her mind should have been on important matters. Some of her poems have been published, along with reams of public information, booklets, brochures and, with her husband, Col, a travel guide to South-East Queensland.

Janita was born at the end of World War II in the small New South Wales town of Barraba. Six months later, the family moved to Brisbane to live with her paternal grandfather in his sprawling Queenslander. There she spent her idle childhood. This was the time when they holidayed at Munna Point on the Noosa River, to be idle by the sea. On the river’s wild northern shore stood a little old house. Its isolation made it an object of romance for the children on the southern shore and, in the end, the inspiration of this story.

Janita now lives near the sea again, on lovely, salt-stung Stradbroke Island. This is her first full-length novel.