Cirrus@Austlit

'Dorian Wild has a car, a good apartment, a junior partnership in a law firm, and a solid relationship. Then a seeming ghost walks out of an elevator floor, and rebalances a miner's panning dish on top of her head.

'Suddenly Dorian Wild also has danger, tragedy, mystery, break-ins, mayhem, an unscrupulous megacorp on her trail, and a whole new concept of reality. Especially when it involves a nineteenth-century Irish activist called Jimmy Keenighan, who has ended up in her time and place for reasons neither of them understands. Except that the whole tangle of gold-mines old and new, dangers past and present, time-shifts, deceit and violence, centers on the town of Blackston, with its once rich and still potential goldfields, and the great mine called the Solitaire. Perhaps, somewhere amongt the mysteries, there maybe another ghost: a shadow, a question, a possibility called Solitaire Two.

'The Solitaire Ghost is a fast-moving combination of suspense and time-romance, played out in an Australian setting. The story knits together the historical past and the twenty-first century present, and discovers many common elements, especially around the ever-disturbing presence of gold.'

Sourcde: Publisher's blurb.

'American environmental journalist Judith Theresa Bryan has fled to Tasmania after a fiasco in Queensland, Australia, where a deceptive environmentalist led her down the path to professional disgrace and cost her the job she loved.

'But in Tasmania, she gets a new chance, albeit one tainted by the fact that the same man who deceived her before will once again be involved in the story.
But what a story! If she can pull it off…

'Judith is given the plum assignment of recording a full-scale search for the elusive and probably extinct thylacine—Tasmanian Tiger—and unrestricted access to the files of the leading expert on the topic, grazier Bevan Keene, who will lead the expedition.

'One immediate problem is that Keene dislikes and distrusts all journalists, and especially environmental journalists. He also is on record as saying that no sane Tasmanian grazier would admit to having seen a Tassie Tiger on or even near his own land!

'On the subject of whether the animal actually exists, Keene is nothing short of disingenuous. First he admits to Judith that he, personally, has indeed seen the allegedly extinct “tiger”, then denies having said any such thing. It is a problem that plagues Judith’s involvement in the expedition—she doesn’t trust Bevan Keene, he doesn’t trust her, but they seem to be falling for each other at the same time. Her mind tells her one thing; her body quite a different story entirely!

'Is Keene just a wolf, with all-too-realistic expectations of making the copper-headed Judith his next conquest? Or is he, as she sometimes almost believes, the human incarnation of the Tassie Tiger they are supposed to be seeking, with a legitimate place for her in the mystique that surrounds him?

'Judith has no choice but to follow Bevan’s lead through the Tasmanian wilderness in search of an animal that is supposedly extinct and a professional future that appears too often to be going in the same direction.

'In the end, they find what Bevan Keene said all along that they were “meant to find.” And they find each other.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Magda and her three friends—also witches —are recovering from injuries sustained in a recent civil war. Sylvia seems to have lost her powers completely, and Leenan is stuck in the body of a dragon. Only Tephee is physically recovered, but she has changed in other ways. Confusion is added to the war’s aftermath by the arrival of Sebastian, an Arc priest who worships the space-faring founders of this world. He has reports of an “Arc vessel” which has crashed on Marin Kuta, an island off the west coast. Magda suspects the vessel may be a spaceship from Earth and determines to find it, seeking medical treatment for her injured friends. Marin Kuta was originally home to the Leylites, Earth-Mother worshippers who revere witches and are brutally persecuted by the Arc priests.

'Despite the danger, the witches decide to investigate. They are accompanied by Sebastian, who is convinced that Magda has been sent to heal the rift between the two religions, and Cadogan Ho, a Leylite refugee from Marin Kuta who is now sergeant of the Castle Guard. The witches meet with awe and love as they travel—but also with fear and hatred. And death.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'A group of witches gathers in the town of Tunston, on a simple undeveloped world far distant from our own. Magda, Tephee, Sylvia, and Leenan each have their own unique gifts of power. Witches are not trusted in this distant world, in which magic works but technology, which is associated with a widespread religious order referred to as "the Arc," is feeble. In the spring, a group of exiles arrives in Tunston. They bring news of the overthrow of King Armand of Tyne, deposed by his cousin with the aid of a witch, Zuleika Tallan. Discovering the deposed king is still alive, the witches decide to journey to Tyne. Meeting the injured king at last, Sylvia announces her intention to defeat Zuleika regardless of his wishes. King Armand is irresolute, and the mysterious enmity of the exiled captain of the castle guard with the king boils over and affects the group. Magda and her friends must work to overcome their own problems before the true king and his ragtag army are destroyed. On their journey they discover that one of them holds the key to ultimate victory, but will she learn to control her power in time to avert disaster? In the end, all that the witches can count on is their own inner strength - and each other.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Bess Carson writes steamy, historical romances, but she certainly doesn't want a man. So when fellow author Geoffrey Barrett, a Tasmanian author of rugged, outback historical adventures, suggests she leave her beloved Colorado and fly to Australia so they can co-author a book together, she scoffs at the idea. Yes, they share a common interest, but fly to Tasmania and co-author a book? Together . . . at the same computer, in the same house, without the safety of an ocean and a "delete" key between them -- not on your life! But that's suddenly a much better option than fighting off another corporate marriage bid being arranged by her manipulative father. Suddenly, Bess is flying halfway round the world on a date with destiny. Geoffrey Barrett is everything suggested by his Web-site photo, a man as rawboned and vivid as Bess's suppressed emotions, and a man determined to drag Bess into his life and keep her there. Then her malicious father takes a hand, and Bess is on the run again, fighting kidnappers, her own inhibitions and a growing love for her co-author. Now everybody's out to find Bess -- the father she fears, the man she has come to love, and -- not least -- Bess herself!'

Source : publisher's blurb