The best books with an isolated setting

You can’t get more isolated than the Australian outback. Or more brutal. And it’s here that stockman Cameron Bright is found dead, on the border of two cattle properties, at an old stockman’s grave.

The Lost Man goes on to tell the story of the Bright family, who live in this harsh environment, making a living off the land. Nathan, Cameron’s older brother, especially, needs answers about his brother’s death and starts questioning the family’s finances, along with his family’s past and begins to wonder if something more sinister is at play.

I loved the way Jane Harper portrayed this vast, unforgiving landscape and the way it has total control over the people who choose to make their homes there.

In The Last Thing to Burn, Will Dean is very clever in his choice of location and how it’s become a prison for Jane.

Jane lives in a small cottage with her farmer husband surrounded by paddocks. The whole book is set in the cramped confines of the small cottage, where Jane’s husband rules over her and punishes her if she does anything wrong. Jane’s completely cut off from the rest of the world. Her whole world is the cottage.

I love the way Jane slowly realises that she may have a way out, and we join her, heart in mouth, as she plans her escape. I’ve never raced through the last forty pages of a book so fast!

Tama is a helpless magpie chick when he’s rescued by Marnie and taken into her home that she shares with her husband Rob.

As Tama thrives and grows under Marnie’s care he begins to talk, and so begins The Axeman’s Carnival, a story told through the eyes of a magpie. I think the best thing about this book (apart from a very entertaining Tama) is the huge disparity between Tama and Marnie’s social media fame and the physical and emotional isolation Marnie experiences.

The book is set on a sheep station in the South Island of New Zealand. And while Marnie occasionally sees her mother and sister and drives into town, her life is very isolated, made worse by her violent and erratic husband, but made better with her newfound love for Tama.

After breaking up with her boyfriend during a trip to New Zealand, Cassy meets a group of people who invite her to stay with them at their farming collective.

This book perfectly portrays the way someone is drawn into a cult, slowly giving themselves up to the beliefs of the leader; in this case, Justin and his prophecy about the Last Day. When Cassy finally agrees to stay with the group, she is taken further and further into rural New Zealand, eventually ending up on a jetty, where a boat is waiting to take her to the farm.

Through Cassy’s eyes we first see only wild beauty, and happy, content people but that gradually changes and she eventually sees the valley for what it is, a hidden place for Justin to preach to his people and plan for the Last Day, safe from prying eyes. 

In the Clearing is told from the POV of Amy and Freya, and while Freya’s chapters have her living in small-town Australia, it’s teenager Amy’s chapters that are the most chilling.

Amy lives with her ‘family’ in the Clearing, a place far away from anything and anyone. She has a regimented life where she’s expected to work and go to school. There are also specific rules to keep the family running as it should and the threat of punishment is always present.

The isolated location of the Clearing, surrounded by harsh Australian bush, means safety and a place to hide dark secrets for some, but to others it is a prison. With the disappearance of a child, Amy and Freya’s stories combine as the past is exposed.