title: Like Twigs in a Storm
author: Richdale, Ross
description: While converting a closed country school into a summer batch near Wellington, New Zealand, Steve Garnet meets neighbour, Lavina Ryland. Their friendship soon develops into a romance that hurtles them into danger and changes their lives and the life of Lavina's daughter, Cathy forever.
  Grant Ryland learns about his wife's infidelity and, in a drunken rage, drugs Lavina, Cathy and Steve. He abducts them and abandons the trio on an isolated mountaintop airstrip above bush-covered ranges, at least four day's walking distance from the nearest road.
  Facing an onslaught of life-threatening perils, including frostbite, raging icy rapids, and violent storms, the trio struggles to survive and find their way back to civilization.
  Is the fate that seems to control their destinies actually premeditated? Can their fortitude overcome the grave odds against them?
  Join this brave trio as their strength and love is repeatedly tested and they learn what it really means to be a family.
  N.B. Originally entitled Fortitude & Fate.