In 1993 Freya Prentiss returns to Australia after a whirlwind courtship and marriage in Scotland, looking forward to merging motherhood with meaningful work. Elated about reuniting with her own family after a thirteen year absence she is uneasy about meeting Reg's parents. Startled by the wealth and lifestyle of her in-laws, qualms emerge around values and compromise.While Reg is in New York on business, complications set in for Freya – her sister's IVF baby, her grandmother's dementia, the road accident that kills her parents and uninvited memories of first love. As Freya cares for Gramma, old family secrets and identity questions plague her again. When the old lady dies Freya reviews her priorities. Aided by good friends she applies to volunteer for humanitarian aid work.In Africa the injustice of the 1997-1998 man-made famine in the south of Sudan and the desperate plight of the victims breaks Freya's heart. Just when the tide is turning for the starving and dispossessed, her first love Alexander appears briefly out of the blue. Emotion flares but he is married with a child – taboo.The emergency medevac of a colleague to Amsterdam takes her to furlough earlier than expected. Headed for the remote north-west of Scotland she vows to tackle her confusion about humanity in general and an out-dated emotional attachment. WINFREDA DONALDNow retired from the paid workforce, Winfreda is able to indulge a life-long ambition to write fiction. Although she enjoyed her later work-life writing (research reports, policy documents, academic theses), the joy of allowing imagination to run is liberating. Farewell to the constraints of facts and statistics.Another ambition is to stay healthy for long enough to tap out the myriad fancies itching to take shape.Winfreda calls on experiences from a long working life and a fascination with family dynamics to fashion characters and plots. But as she writes, some alchemy happens to merge the temperaments and personalities of the characters with unforeseen events that often surprise her.Most of all Winfreda is interested in the rich and hidden stories of everyday people's lives - happy stories, sad stories, people in danger, exhilarating tales, ambitious exploits, self-sabotage and workplace skulduggery. Other incidents that weave into the fictions explode from our shared environment of tension, violence, and the increasing streams of news reports and documentaries of our times.Since 2013 Winfreda has published the first three books of The Long Shadows Series. This family and friendship saga traces the lives of young Freya Dunbar and Alexander Marcou, played out in the late twentieth century, against the legacies that World War II laid on both their families. Past Imperfect (Book One) begins the story with settings in Scotland and Australia. Present Tense (Book Two) and Future Hope (Book Three) follow the trials and adventures of the young lovers in Europe and Africa. The fourth story in the series, Tides of Time is still incubating (for publication at the end of 2015 or early 2016).Winfreda is also working on a short story assortment and possibly a memoir-ish collection of reflections.
