Lomandra Press

About The Rarest Thing

by Deborah O’Brien

From the author of the bestselling Mr Chen’s Emporium comes a heartwarming new novel inspired by a true event.

It’s 1966, and a mountain pygmy possum – a species that scientists considered to be long extinct – is discovered in the Victorian High Country and transported to Melbourne where newspapers dub it ‘the world’s rarest creature’.

Thirty-year-old Dr Katharine Wynter is a palaeontologist who’s more comfortable with ancient bones than live human beings, particularly men. Having studied the tiny possum in fossil form, Katharine is curious to see it in the flesh, but her visit is disrupted by the presence of wildlife photographer, Scott King, taking pictures for an international magazine.

Soon Katharine and Scott are thrown together on a quest to locate the miniature marsupials in their habitat - the rugged Australian Alps. Along the way, the timid scientist discovers a side to her character she never knew existed, while the dashing photographer abandons his bravado and confronts memories he's hidden for decades.