The Water Race by D. Bradley

A mysterious water springs – legendary for its healing powers – is causing division in Waka Bay amongst its rival claimants.
Rachel, a power suit wearing Wellington consultant, is hurriedly dispatched to the remote community to facilitate a luxury tourist resort for her wealthy client. Out of her comfort zone, Rachel is forced to rub shoulders with eccentric campers and new age healers – all the while trying to exploit the marketing potential of the springs and placate local opposition to the proposed spa resort.
She meets resistance in Madeleine – a young, idealistic Maori woman – fledgling activist and self-appointed guardian of the water springs. Her protests cause headaches for Alan, on whose land the healing springs are situated. Alan is a gruff, recently-bereaved elderly farmer – determined to fulfill his wife’s dying wish of establishing a vineyard as a family trust for his daughters – and he needs the water from the healing springs to irrigate his vines.
Everyone in the small Waka Bay community becomes embroiled in a tense web of alliances and deceptions over the course of a long summer drought until an unexpected incident forces them to rally together.

The Water Race is a novel about community and self-interest, and the clash of pragmatic and intuitive world views. It explores the complex issue of what constitutes true healing.

“This is such a fine concept and plotline: at once timeless and contemporary, socially relevant and significant, believable, and loaded with dramatic conflict.” SUE McCAULEY