In Rosalie Ham’s The Year of the Farmer we find five years of drought have been hard on Bishop’s Corner. They’ve been hard on the whole region, but Mitchell Bishop has suffered especially since Neralie McIntosh left town for the city. Mitch is now married to Mandy, against the town’s wishes, and she’s hellbent on getting the respect she feels she’s owed as Mrs Bishop.

With the water authority ready to cut allocations to irrigators, no one’s got any money to pay anyone else and the town is ready to riot. And just who is the pubs new owner and what will they mean for the simmering tensions across the community?