Cirrus@Austlit

'At the turn of the last century, in the first years of the new nation, Clytie Hart, bareback rider, travels with her mother and her circus family through the back roads of rural Victoria. Wildebrand’s Circus has seen better days and when they are persuaded to perform at Hufnung, a small, forgotten town in the Gold Triangle, Clytie’s life is changed forever.

'Little does she know that her chance meeting on the side of the road with Rom, a handsome stranger, will be the catalyst that stops her roving ways and sees her settling into life on the edge of a small country town. Love for her mother and Rom cements Clytie's place in town, but soon she is left to fend for herself as tragedy and war strike. And without the help and the love of friends found in the most unlikely of places, Clytie will never solve the tragic mystery that threatens to blight her life forever.

'Golden Hope is a story is as wide and sweeping as the landscape itself, told by a master storyteller at the peak of her powers. ' (Publication summary)

'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.

'The L’Estrange half-brothers were born only months apart. One brother is an idealistic dreamer, the other a volatile adventurer. And the rivals have two things in common – a fatal attraction to get-rich schemes that run afoul of the law – and their obsession with Vianna. - ' (Publication summary)