The Past is a Secret Country - Maree Giles

Freya lives on a houseboat on the Grand Union Canal in London. She's happy there - she's started a business as a natural therapist; she likes her own company and loves the friendly, albeit eccentric canal lifestyle. There's one thing missing - her two teenage children: Kirsty and Tom. They are living with her born-again Christian ex-husband Neill, and his new wife. The courts need to be convinced that Freya is a better parent for them than Neill and Freya is obsessed with proving this. One day, just before the court is to decide, she has a visitor - someone, who just happens to be black and have an American accent - who claims to be Freya's sister and that there's another, a twin. Shocked, Freya cannot believe it but gradually is forced into listening to Connie's story and look back at her Australian childhood. She has to temporarily put aside her children to find out who she really is...