‘I was so angry when my parents told me we were moving here,’ I said, as I enveloped Chloe in a hug and drew her into me. ‘How could I know there’d be a girl in Turlough with eyes like yours?’

Jayden was about to have his ‘best year ever’. He’d finally reached Year 10, he was looking forward to picking what school he’d attend for his senior years and Rosie Bianci had kissed him at her fifteenth birthday party. Then his world came crashing down. His dad had a new job, and they were moving to some crumby little town called Turlough. Could things get any worse?

After his dad almost kills the whole family as they drive into Turlough that first day, Jay sees some kids swimming in the river and gets his first glimpse of Chloe Malone and she sees him looking. She starts by poking her tongue out at him, a couple of days later she accuses him of being a stalker and then ignores him for almost a month. Just because he asks her one simple question: why does she stay out so late at night?

But it’s a question Chloe asks Jay that really changes things. One simple question that sets them on a search for the truth and starts Jay thinking. Why doesn’t he know anything about his grandfather? As Jay and Chloe start hunting for the truth other questions come up. Why does his mum refuse to speak about her dad? Why does Jay sometimes see colours when he listens to music? And the most important question of all for Jay; why does his mum categorically refuse to let him learn to play the guitar?

Jay’s convinced the answers to these questions are somehow bound up with his grandfather’s story, what happened when his mum was growing up and the music award his grandparents received in the 1980s. His grandmother’s a barrister who lives on the north coast of New South Wales. How come she won a music award back in the old days?   

As Jay and Chloe grow closer it turns out his family isn’t the only one with dark secrets. Chloe tells Jay about her dad and something she thinks happened that’s so serious he’s convinced she’s not safe. There are darker and more dangerous currents running through Turlough than the water running under the bridge as you drive into town.

Seeing Colours is a story about growing up in an idyllic Australian outback town a long way from the excitement of the big city. However, somehow the dangers and colour flow into town and have an impact in spite of distance and the time that’s passed. Through it all Jay and Chloe search, change and grow close but are they really cut out for each other? Whenever their relationship seems to be progressing things have a bad habit of getting in the way including Jay’s rival Dave ‘too tanned’ Handen.

Heart-warming, funny and sometimes confronting Seeing Colours is a story of kids growing up and doing their best to survive miles from anywhere but somehow right in the middle of the things. The only things that really matter; fighting for what you want, discovering the truth and falling in love.