Please join Leanne for a chat with local author Donna M Martin and celebrate the launch of her debut fiction Flood and Tears on Friday 6th November at 5.30pm.

Donna lives on the canals of Newport Island in Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia. When the devastating 2021 floods swept through northern New South Wales, they reshaped not only the landscape but also her life, ultimately sparking the story that became this book. The 100-year flood inundated her home and her neighbours’ homes.
A former business owner with a lifelong love of reading, Donna brought that same drive and instinct for storytelling to her debut novel. She tasted success when she placed runner-up in a short story competition in 2025. She has had numerous short stories published in writers’ magazines. The floods gave her the story she had to tell. Flood and Tears is the result.
Donna is a dedicated member of her local book club. She is a member of the Fellowship of Australian Writers, Port Macquarie Writers, the Australian Crime Writers Association, and the Australian Society of Authors. She understands firsthand the power of a good story to illuminate what we otherwise struggle to say.

FLOOD AND TEARS

In March 2021, a catastrophic flood tore through the northern NSW town of River Edge, forcing neighbours to flee as rising water swept homes away. Tom and Henry, cafe owners, risked their lives to rescue Dick Phillips after he was badly injured escaping his submerged property. Neighbour Darren Short abandons his elderly father, Ed, after years of unreturned caregiving, believing the disaster may finally free him from a life he never chose. When S.E.S. crews search the wreckage of Dick’s boat shed, they uncover an overturned chest freezer. Fish spill out, but beneath them lies the preserved body of Hillary Phillips, Dick’s wife, missing for six years and long presumed drowned.

Rachel Phillips returns home to visit her father in the hospital, only to discover that her mother’s body has been found. She is forced to confront the father she once trusted and still loved. Detectives Steve Sansom and Nikki Ambrose determine that Hillary was murdered, and their investigation soon reveals a second crime. A post‑hole digger bearing two sets of DNA, linking the case to the suspicious death of Dick’s mother twenty‑five years earlier. That earlier death sent local man Jimmy Smith to prison, a conviction long accepted as fact. Sansom and Ambrose dig deeper, they join forces with retired police officer Bill Taylor and persistent local reporter Jan Stirling to challenge the original investigation and expose the truth hidden beneath decades of silence. Their work unravels a pattern of violence and control that Dick concealed behind a façade of community respectability. Ultimately, Jimmy Smith is cleared, and Dick Phillips gets a life sentence. As River Edge rebuilds after the flood, the town must reckon with the secrets the waters unearthed and the lives forever changed by what finally came to the surface. Donna will have books to sell and sign at this launch.