Anne McGill, a young blonde woman living in the tiny Scottish village of Meigle, is still mourning the death of her mother when she has a startling encounter with an attractive Australian doctor called Peter Young. Charmed by his magnetic personality, his physical charms and his colourful stories about life in Outback Australia she is immediately on the brink of falling in love. But is that wise? Anne's mother was shunned by her aristocratic family when she fell pregnant to a dashing young officer, then gave up everything by eloping, only to have her soldier husband die heroically in action. After that brief romance she lived a lonely life of hardship with her daughter her only comfort. Anne has been told and retold the sad story ever since she was a little child and has always identified with the runaway lovers. But as she grew older she came to realise that their love came at a huge cost: a life of hardship, loneliness and grief. Is the fascinating Peter Young the man of Anne's dreams? Should she welcome his love matter no matter what it costs? Or learn from her own mother's bitter experience? And what about Colin Tasker, the loyal lawyer friend who has been courting her ever since she returned from university? In "Australian Dreaming" Anne fights to take control of her own young life and comes perilously close to disaster, even death, before she learns what really matters.