Read an extract from The Banksia Bay Beach Shack by Sandie Docker!

Sandie Docker is an Australian author, whose latest book is a heartwarming family saga called The Banksia Bay Beach Shack. Sandie grew up in Coffs Harbour, and first fell in love with reading when her father introduced her to fantasy books as a teenager. Her love of fiction began when she first read Jane Austen for the HSC, but it wasn’t until she was taking a translation course at university that her Mandarin lecturer suggested she might have a knack for writing – a seed of an idea that sat quietly in the back of her mind while she lived overseas and travelled the world. Sandie first decided to put pen to paper (yes, she writes everything the old-fashioned way before hitting a keyboard) when living in London. Now back in Sydney with her husband and daughter, she writes every day.

Today, we have an extract from The Banksia Bay Beach Shack on the blog – read on!

Sandie Docker

All night Laura had tossed and turned. She’d stared at that photo for an hour, maybe more, and had opened the frame and turned the photo over, but there was no inscription on the back. She had no doubt now that coming to Banksia Bay had been the right move. There was, without question, more to Lillian’s story and this place, and Laura was determined to find out just what that story was.

But she’d have to be careful. Lillian had come here more than once, it seemed, and had kept a mysterious postcard from Banksia Bay hidden under her bed with other special trinkets. Maher’s rule number three, always trust your instincts, was one she never broke. And her instincts were telling her this story was more than just a few photos. How was she going to find the answers to questions she didn’t know to ask, though? And how would this tiny town react to her probing?

With the morning sun just beginning to rise, Laura gave up on the hope of sleep. She crawled out of bed, got dressed and bent down and tied up the laces of her trainers. Pounding the pavement was just what she needed right now. She headed out the door and ran.

Half an hour later she’d pretty much taken in the whole town, as far as she could tell, and she slowed as she came back to the main street. At least she figured it was the main street, as it was the only one she had come across in her jog with any shops on it.

Wider than any road she was used to in Sydney’s inner city, the west side was lined with small wooden and brick buildings protected from the elements by corrugated-iron awnings. There was a pub, of course – The Pioneer – rather grand for a small town, with its two storeys of taupe-painted rendering and upstairs verandah wrapped in a lacy white wrought-iron balustrade. Laura suspected you could see the ocean from up there. It was closed on Tuesdays. Shame. She’d been hoping to maybe start snooping there today. She figured all she had to do to begin with was find a quiet spot in the pub, settle in with a drink and just watch and listen. It might not give her anything specific, but if you paid attention, it was amazing what you could learn in a pub. Alcohol loosened tongues and often people believed they were hidden in dark corners that weren’t as dark as they thought. A word here, a stolen glance there, a touch when you thought no one was looking, gave away so much.

She walked past the post office right next door, small and quaint with bricks painted white and a bright red wooden door, and then a general store that took up half the block. It was called The Saddler, that Laura thought a strange name as she didn’t get a sense this was a horse-type town. Next was a surf shop, which did make sense, with boards and wetsuits displayed in the window, and an ice creamery boasting forty flavours, which seemed to be tacked on to the surf shop. In the window of the ice creamery a hand-written sign hung: ‘Open again December 1st’.

On the beach side of the street, right up the north end near the car park the Bodhi Bus had come in to, was a lone fish and chip shop, the walls painted in wide blue and white stripes, also not open until December. Charlotte hadn’t been kidding. They really didn’t get tourists here outside of summer. Laura put her hands on her hips and drew in deep breaths. She’d run hard. Fast. From behind the fish and chip shop she could hear the crashing of waves on sand.

She pulled out a drink bottle from her backpack and took a long sip. She was also carrying a notepad and pen inside the small running bag. Perhaps she could sit on a dune and formulate a plan. The top of the deep-orange sun kissed the horizon as it climbed ever so slowly into the morning. The sea was cast in black and indigo, streaked with slivers of liquid-fire reflection. The rocks that framed the north end of the beach were dark and foreboding and the banksias reaching up from the hill behind them were just touched by the morning light.

Laura turned around and headed south along the beach. With only a few steps taken, she pulled her shoes off, tying the laces together and slinging them over her shoulder. The sand was colder than she’d expected, but it was soft and laid out before her like a plush carpet that had never been walked on. She had the whole beach to herself.

With feet bare, she inched closer to the water’s edge as she ambled along. She breathed in a heady mix of salt and misty water, and the only sound was of the dark waves breaking white on the shore, their rushing in and slow retreat a haunting song of age and renewal.

Halfway down the beach she stopped and stood facing the sunrise, her ankles lapped by the cool water, and she took in a deep breath. What was the pose they’d been taught at work that time Maher had brought in a yoga instructor to increase productivity? Sun solution, warrior downward pony? Something like that. She hadn’t really been listening. Yoga was for people who were stressed, and stress was for people who weren’t in control of their lives. And she was always in control. Well, except for her decision to come here.

Laura stood on one foot, her other leg tucked up against her knee. That was right. Maybe. She straightened up, her hands above her head. Yes. That was it. And then a twist wasn’t it? With a lean? She overbalanced and, before she could stop herself, fell into a crumpled mess on the sand, splashed by the water, which seemed to be crawling further and further towards the dunes.

Laura laughed so hard tears fell down her cheeks. As her composure returned, she was left with salty teardrops at the edges of her mouth. She wiped them away, but more came. Was she crying? She picked herself up and brushed the wet sand off her legs.

Rash decisions and tears. When would grief be done with her? She didn’t like it one bit. Focus. You’re here to do a job …

–Extract from The Banksia Bay Beach Shack by Sandie Docker (Penguin Books Australia), RRP $32.99, out March 17.

The Banksia Bay Beach Shack

by Sandie Docker

A year is a long time in the memory of a small town. Stories get twisted, truths become warped, history is rewritten.

When Laura discovers an old photo of her grandmother, Lillian, with an intriguing inscription on the back, she heads to the sleepy seaside town of Banksia Bay to learn the truth of Lillian’s past. But when she arrives, Laura finds a community where everyone seems to be hiding something. Virginia, owner of the iconic Beach Shack café, has kept her past buried for sixty years. As Laura slowly uncovers...

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