Jo Havens Jo Havens i(29200225 works by)
Gender: Female
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 y separately published work icon The Piano in the Tree Jo Havens , Australia : Jo Havens , 2024 29200243 2024 single work novel

'Sixteen years ago, something terrible kept Polly from meeting her girlfriend at a train station in Berlin. Dreams were shattered. Hearts were broken. Two women continued through life alone.

'Now, Ksenia Tokarycz is obliged to come back to Australia. Sure, she does it in triumph and she does it in style, but a tardy delivery sends her in search of her piano – back to her childhood home, back to the place where Polly Paterson is still just next door.

'High on the escarpment where the summer storms beat their way up the coast and hurl their fury against the sandstone cliffs, a love that never truly died forces two women to come to terms with their scars.

'But there is a curious sound on the breeze. There is music on the breath of the wind. And when Toks sees what has happened to her piano, she fears there is a very strong chance her darling Pearl might be utterly mad.

'The Piano in the Tree is a contemporary, second chance sapphic romance set between Australia and Europe.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
1 y separately published work icon Once in Berlin Jo Havens , Australia : Jo Havens , 2022 29203219 2022 single work novel historical fiction

'Could you spy on the woman you loved?

'It’s 1938 and Europe teeters on the edge of war.

In Berlin, life for Mila Nessian – genius mathematician, billionaire and womaniser – is one long party. A spot of rocket science by day, the Third Reich’s prettiest daughters by night. She knows what they whisper behind their hands – that Germany’s most dazzling mind has nothing but a calculator where her heart should be, a sliver of ice instead of soul. She smirks through yet another boring cocktail party and hopes 'they’re wrong.

'Cecelia Balfour is dragged to Berlin by her socialite mother – and it’s the last place she wants to be. Cecelia has lost a lover and worries that her heart is too bruised to ever properly love again. To distract her, to maybe get her back in the game, her cousin at MI6 sets up a play: flirt with Mila Nessian, capture her secrets, lure her back to London.

'Because what Mila is working on could steer the course of the coming war. The Nazis want her brilliance, British Secret Intelligence wants her silence, and Cecelia – once she has laughed with her, slept with her, sipped champagne on a Zeppelin with her and lost her heart to her – Cecelia wants her love.

'Can she win Mila’s trust and save her from the powers that control both their lives?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
1 y separately published work icon The Blood We Spill Jo Havens , Australia : Jo Havens , 2021 29202966 2021 single work novel science fiction romance

'What would make the most ruthless ice-queen assassin in the Kingdom hesitate?

'Bound to the Kingdom for life, Cie serves a cruel King, her knives pledged to his word, her life at his mercy. She is also one of the Kingdom’s most privileged slaves – one of the Praetoria: five of the best, sworn to protect the Prince and, one day, to rule at his side. It’s not a bad life – luxurious parties in any of the eighteen worlds, beautiful women falling over themselves to land in her bed, her orders to be obeyed by over forty-eight billion citizens. But when a routine job goes spectacularly wrong, Cie discovers there is a witness to her failure – a witness to a political assassination the King would never want revealed. It’s Cie’s intense misfortune that the witness is a beauty – a woman with sweet, warm skin that Cie longs to sink into, with deep, brown eyes that hold promises that Cie has only ever dreamt of, a woman whose embrace offers a gentleness and a kindness Cie craves above all else.

'Jemma thought she’d been in love before, but when she falls for the King’s assassin, she falls hard. Cie burns her up – the assassin plays fast and loves harder, and Jemma’s head is whirling even as her body is thrilled. Jemma watches as a growing terrorist threat pushes the King to madness and Cie’s orders become more and more violent. The woman she thinks she loves is steeped in red.

'Is it even possible for a girl from the suburbs to love a person so drenched in blood?'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
X