Sydney, 1869. Flora Augusta O'Reilly fled England to escape a dangerous suitor and the scandal he tried to force upon her. But the safety she seeks in the colonies proves elusive. A stolen document, an unfinished painting, and a parcel of disputed land draw her into a web of secrets hidden beneath Sydney's glittering surface.Her only unexpected ally is Heath Ransome, a guarded grazier whose blunt honesty conceals deeper loyalties. Their uneasy partnership soon leads them into peril-because the truth someone has buried is powerful enough to destroy reputations, fortunes, and lives.As threats close in, Flora must face the past she ran from and the future she never imagined.A gripping Victorian mystery of love, scandal, and betrayal-perfect for fans of Kate Morton, Christine Wells, and Tea Cooper. Jenny Wheeler is convinced there is no better time than now to be a woman, but if she was faced with making a second choice it would be 1860's California – the setting for her historical mystery series Of Gold & Blood.Nearly twenty years after the 1849 Gold Rush brought thousands upon thousands of (mainly) men into California on the greatest adventure of their lives, the energy, the thirst for excitement remained, but the rough frontier had become a maritime colony; "urban, cosmopolitan, and resembling nothing else in the Far West," (Kevin Starr, Americans and the California Dream, 1850 – 1915. Oxford University Press.) A place where women had the chance to pursue their dreams with more freedom than (arguably) anywhere else in the civilized world.Jenny loves the stories that came to be spun from the region that was "the cutting edge of the American dream," (Kevin Starr again) and she's busily creating those stories with as much passion as those '49ers chased after gold nuggets!
