Showing results by author "Johanna Nicholls" in All Categories

A stunning epic bringing the passions and heartaches of colonial Australia to vivid life. When a volatile trio is thrown together in Australia, they form an extraordinary, unexpected alliance that will challenge the establishment. Love, hate, survival and revenge: all will discover the truth.

English aristocrat Isabel de Rolland is sent to Australia to marry Marmaduke Gamble, the debts of her family being paid in exchange for the respectability her lineage gives the rich ex-convict Gamble family. Despite all odds, Isabel and Marmaduke develop a grudging friendship that over time blooms into something more. But the secrets of the past continue to haunt them and the madness in both their families threatens their hard-won happiness.

New Year’s Day 1901 sees the birth of Australia as a nation, eager to claim her place on the world stage. Clytie Hart, a daring equestrienne, is travelling with her mother in a wagon train along the back roads of Victoria’s Gold Triangle. Once world-famous, Wildebrand Circus is now struggling to survive. But a chance meeting with Rom Delaney, a wild young adventurer, changes everything. His invitation to play in Hoffnung, an isolated gold-mining town, promises to restore the circus’ fortunes. To Clytie, the roving life is all she has ever known.

Vianna Francis, known in the colony as ‘The Sydney Venus’, is a notorious young mistress in keeping to a former gentleman convict, who uses her to entice wealthy men to his gaming tables. A woman of mystery, Vianna is a magnet for scandal. Was she the mistress of a Royal duke? A lady’s maid who learned the tricks of the world’s oldest profession when in service to a Parisian courtesan? Or the widow of a young man executed on the gallows? Men of high rank are determined to possess this passionate, mercenary beauty.