Any reader drawn to this first edition’s cover image of summer catalogue pastels, sand dunes and deck chair, or by Catherine Robertson’s happy association with the romance genre, is bound for a deeper richer read than expected. Bookended by a literal eye of dog, from the perspective of King, the resident black Labrador of Gabriel’s Bay the township, ‘Gabriel’s Bay’ wisely refrains from the picturesque or breaking wave scenario so popular in beach art. Robertson‘s town is an anywhere and everywhere coastal New Zealand settlement; familiar ribbon development along the stretch of bay, with supermarket, two pubs, one closed, a petrol station, doctor’s surgery and pop-up café. The nearest town is Hampton, just ‘over the hill’, by a windy and precipitous country road.