The World Beneath

Once, Rich and Sandy were environmental activists, part of a world-famous blockade in Tasmania to save the wilderness. Now, 25 years later, they have settled into the uncomfortable compromises of middle age – although they've gone about it in very different ways. About the only thing they have in common these days is their 15-year-old daughter, Sophie.

When Rich decides to take Sophie, whom he hardly knows, on a walk into the Tasmanian wilderness, his overconfidence and her growing disillusion with him set off a chain of events that none of them could have predicted. Instead of respect, Rich finds antagonism in the relationship he hoped to create with Sophie, and, in the vast wilderness he once felt an affinity with, nothing but disorientation and fear.

The uneasy truce established long ago between Rich and Sandy is shattered when he and Sophie leave the track to explore the remote terrain known as the Labyrinth. As days pass with no word, all three begin to understand that if they are to survive, each must traverse not only the secret territories that lie between them but also those within themselves.

The World Beneath by Cate Kennedy is a gripping exploration of the challenges and changes that face a fragmented family confronting the wilderness around and within them.