Twenty-five years as a psychologist has lent Helen McNeil's writing both insight and compassion. She writes about ordinary people dealing with deep questions: Where is home? What does family mean? Are my beliefs worth the pain? Who am I?

Cloud Ink Press has published two of her novels; A Place to Stand in 2013 and A Striking Truth in 2016. A Striking Truth won the 2017 Bert Roth Labour History Award.
A number of her short stories have been published in New Zealand.

These are the questions compelling this story set in small-town New Zealand. In 1956, Sandra McLeod and her British immigrant family came to Kawerau seeking a new life. But it was not an easy journey… When Sandra returns twenty years later, she must confront ghosts of her past.

Amongst blooming pohutakawas, a pragmatic woman must confront the indignity of death.
Illustrated by Robin Charles.