Showing results by author "Johanna Craven" in All Categories

Journey through the colonies of 19th-century Australia with three stand-alone novels of love, loss, survival, and redemption. In 1806, a fateful decision sends Eleanor Marling from the salons of London to a prison ship bound for New South Wales. She is put to work at the female factory of Parramatta. English settler Grace Ashwell flees an abusive lover in Hobart Town, with six-year-old Violet in tow. Deep in the wilderness, they find a crude hut inhabited by an escaped convict long presumed dead.

They say only the brave ride Bridles Lane at night. Vicar Richard Dodge speaks of ghosts and demons, conducting elaborate exorcisms in his churchyard overlooking the lane. And with the villagers sheltering in fear, local smugglers carry their haul up the road to be hidden in the safety of the church. Isaac and Scarlett Bailey have spent their lives hiding contraband in Talland church. Forced into free trade by their father's mistakes, they want nothing more than to escape the smuggling syndicate and build a life above the law.

In 1806, a fateful decision sends Eleanor Marling from the salons of London to a prison ship bound for New South Wales. She is put to work at the female factory of Parramatta, where the women’s only hope of food and lodgings is to offer their bodies to the settlement’s men. Nell is given shelter by Lieutenant Blackwell, a brooding soldier to whom she is inexplicably drawn. Despite warnings from the other women, Blackwell’s motives seem decent, and beneath the roof of a military officer, Nell sees a chance to become more than a convict woman sent to the factory to be forgotten.

English settler Grace Ashwell flees an abusive lover in Hobart Town, with six-year-old Violet in tow. In her head, escape is easy: find work in the northern settlements and earn enough for passage home to London. But the terrain beyond the settled districts is wilder than Grace could ever have imagined. She and Violet find themselves lost in a beautiful but deadly land where rain thunders down mountains, the earth drops away without warning and night brings impenetrable darkness.

They say only the brave ride Bridles Lane at night. Vicar Richard Dodge speaks of ghosts and demons, conducting elaborate exorcisms in his churchyard overlooking the lane. And with the villagers sheltering in fear, local smugglers carry their haul up the road to be hidden in the safety of the church. Isaac and Scarlett Bailey have spent their lives hiding contraband in Talland church. Forced into free trade by their father's mistakes, they want nothing more than to escape the smuggling syndicate and build a life above the law.

Australia, 1857. Life is brutal on the goldfields of Castlemaine. With death around every corner, people are all too willing to believe in ghosts and embrace the spiritualism movement finding its way across the seas. For Lucy Earnshaw and her husband Tom, their arrival in Australia is marred by unimaginable grief. In the wake of her loss, and amid a failing marriage, Lucy is drawn into the world of spiritualism and theater—and into the path of dashing young playwright, Will Browning. Lucy’s new obsession leads her into the dark underbelly of the goldfields.

Isaac and Scarlett Bailey’s attempts to escape the smuggling syndicate have left their lives in pieces. Isaac’s children are missing, and Scarlett’s battle with the darkness inside her has just become far more difficult. As the search for the children escalates, long-buried truths begin to surface, blurring the line between myth and reality, enemy and friend. Home is no longer safe, and risks must be taken.

Scarlett Bailey has left home with a knife in her hand to search for the father she has grown up believing dead. Determined to punish him for abandoning his family, Scarlett finds herself drawn into the world of a local press gang, where smugglers rub shoulders with naval officers and the revenue men are full of surprises.

Isaac Bailey returns home after four years at sea, expecting a welcome from his family. Instead, he finds his parents' graves and his sister, Scarlett, waiting to be rescued from the orphanage. Against his will, Isaac is thrust into a world of smuggling, forced into the service of wealthy syndicate boss Charles Reuben. "Prove yourself trustworthy," says Flora, the witch's daughter, "and the chance for escape will come."