A Farewell to Kurrajong Crossing from Dakota Harrison

Well, this is it, everyone! Book twelve—yes, twelve!—of the series, and sadly, also the final book. I must be truthful, I will be sad to say goodbye to The Crossing. It’s been Fiona’s and my home for the last six years. We’ve had lots of laughter, some tears, and a darned good time creating these stories for you all, and we’ve fallen in love with the characters as much as any of you. If I were asked to pick a favorite, I honestly don’t know if I could! Pushed really hard, I’d have to say Zak, or perhaps Max.

We based this little town on our own hometown and made it better. We made it imperfectly perfect, inviting, and as realistic as we could. We even drew really bad freehand maps!

Just like Emma in book two—The Talk Around Town—I'm a hairdresser by trade. I based her character on an amalgamation of colleagues I’ve had over a twenty-plus year career, and drew on that basis in reality for her creation. Even Gabe, her significant other, is based on a real person, a good friend of my nephew’s who spent a lot of time in our home as an adult. And boy was he stoked when he found out I’d based a character on his personality! He told everyone he could. I even stole his name—Gabriel. Just like my character, he was the sweetest guy ever.

With book five, set in the wineries of the area, I also pulled on some real-life experience. I grew up amongst the wineries of here, and my father was a small winemaker who won a couple of local awards. At nine years old, I even did the whole stomping of the grapes in the crusher. Which I must say, was a lot of fun, but also absolutely horrible in the sensation stakes for this neurodivergent kid who had issues with textures!

Fiona and I played with the seasons, setting books from spring to winter and everything in between. Cat (book one) even had to walk through a snow flurry, which she didn’t mind at all because she was with the man she’d always loved ;) .

We covered as much of real life as we could, too. Nothing was off
limits—friendships, frenemies, love, and betrayals all came under the microscope. We deliberately didn’t shy away from the things that make us human, the things that make us compassionate to those around us, and to what makes community. Even medical heartbreaks weren’t spared. And most are topics that touch us all, and have touched Fiona’s and my lives as well. Things such as cancer, infertility, infidelity, chronic illness, death. Most of all, we wrote about forgiveness.

I tend to write characters who are older, over thirty at the least, because I identify more with their struggles. I try to show them both at their best, and their worst, with all the nitty-gritty things that come with being human entails.

In this final book, Marina, who you met in book one as one of Cat’s best friends, gets her turn at finding her Happy Ever After. She’s been the Mean Girl, the catty one, the one some people wished to emulate, to be. But deep down all she ever wanted was to be loved and accepted for who she is, slightly prickly personality and all. With Cat, she had that, and it all fell apart in her hands because of a painful, stupid mistake. One that she thought she could never come back from.

This is her chance. This is her time to show her true worth.

So come with us on one last adventure and see why Marina made the choices she did, even though it cost her everything she truly loved. Come with us and feel the pain, the happiness, and the agony of the revelation of lifelong, hidden secrets, come to light.

Come join Marina in finding her true one and only.

About the Author.

Dakota lives in a (not so) sunny part of Queensland, Australia, with her human and fur kids, and harbors a strange love of UGG boots. K- and J-Pop feature heavily in her home, especially when drafting her novels, drawing inspiration for her heroes from the music videos and anime, much to her children’s delight and her husband’s sufferance. She loves writing both alpha and beta heroes, all of whom she tortures and makes fall to their knees before their heroines and beg for mercy.