[4] The novel is set in small rural Australian community at Mount Hope located to the north of Pyramid Hill in northern Victoria, Australia.

[7] The novel explores a number of themes from pastoralists and squatters, to itinerants and suffragettes campaigning for women's rights, and the advent of new technology.

[8] In 1894, Phoeba Crupp is an independent woman who does not pay any attention to her mother and sister's concern of getting married, while her father is completely focused on his vineyard.

The Sydney Morning Herald comparing it to Austin's work said "Summer at Mount Hope bears a passing resemblance to the Jane Austen oeuvre insofar as there are daughters to be married and eligible bachelors to be found."

But ultimately concluded that "it is an engaging novel with likeable and plausible characters living in a world created with intelligence, imagination, humour and verve.