Case 8
- Novels, Fiordland
Essie Summers. Where No Roads Go. London: Mills & Boon, 1963.
Natural hazards challenge those attempting to make a living in the pristine wilderness of 'Thunder Fiord', a remote imagined cove in Fiordland's Milford Sound, and the location of Where No Roads Go. Those looming dangerscreate a credible and suspenseful climax in a place where even today few live permanently, but Summers' research of its features is impeccable. The Fletts reached Milford and other remote areas by driving their own car, including Prefect, Vanguard and Humber models.
Essie Summers. Not by Appointment. London: Mills & Boon, 1976.
Not by Appointment is also set in Fiordland, but 240kms away near Lake Te Anau. This novel's main characters share links with the far distant Orkney Isles and with the Isbisters, a couple at the centre of an earlier novel, A Lark in the Meadow.
Essie Summers. So Comes Tomorrow. Sutton: Severn House, 1995.
Another Isbister plays Cupid in one of Summers' final group of novels, So Comes Tomorrow, also set in the terrain around Te Anau. Again the elements intervene to dictate terms to star-crossed lovers.
