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Cover Reveal — A Haunting at Venus Bay

Published on by Carol Jones

I hope readers will love the cover of my new novel as much as I do. With its old house, a sweep of rugged coastline and an impenetrable thicket of coastal scrub, the cover reflects the story world perfectly. Set on Australia’s rugged south coast in the mid-twentieth century and the present day, it’s a tale of two women and the past that haunts them.

Minna’s life had begun to resemble a fairy tale. There was wild forest to the north, and a swamp dense with paperbark trees, bull-rushes and reeds to the south. The town of Bunyip, where she and her mother camped, was named for a mythical beast that lurked in swamps and rivers to pounce on unwary passers-by... Only a determined suitor could cut a swathe to her door through these obstacles.

A Haunting at Venus Bay

An immersive dual-time novel of secrets, marriage and coming home – from the author of The Secrets of Bridgewater Bay

Two women, decades apart, and a house that brings them together.

When Cass leaves London with a fractured heart, she plans to settle in Australia, specifically in the beautiful area of Victoria coastline where she spent so many happy holidays. Yet when she arrives, her house is not quite what she’d envisaged – doing a place up is one thing, living with things that go bump in the night is quite another.

Years earlier, Minna and her mother have escaped war torn Europe to join the fairgrounds. There, Minna meets Albert, a man who wants a wife – but also a full-time worker on the farm near Venus Bay. Albert has no interest in Minna, nor tolerance of her desire to become a writer. When he, and then Minna, both disappear, the mystery of what has happened to them stays buried, seemingly for ever…

It will take Cass, and the discovery of a hidden book, to unravel the secrets of a childhood, a marriage, and a story that will help her live again.

Pre-orders welcome.

Cover Reveal — The Heirloom

Published on by Carol Jones

I absolutely love the cover for my new novel The Heirloom and I hope readers will love it too. It sits perfectly with the covers of my previous novels with Headline but has its own mood and colours. Set in the early 19th century and the present day, its a story of magic and mystery in East Sussex and contemporary Brisbane.

Philadelphia was hunting a spool of ribbon to trim the dame’s second-best bonnet when she entered the workshop that morning, little expecting her life was about to become a public spectacle. For rather than ribbon, she found her husband draped over a spindle-back chair. 

The Heirloom

A stunning, novel of secrets, inheritance and witchcraft, spanning two different centuries and countries, from the author of the THE KEEPSAKE

A surprise inheritance. A hidden past.

Brisbane, 2024  Barista and budding artist Mia Curtis is shocked to receive a package all the way from England informing her she’s the heir to her late grandmother’s cottage. Feeling lost in her own life, Mia travels across the world to claim her inheritance, where she begins to unravel the secrets passed down through the generations of women in her family.

Sussex, 1821  Philadelphia Boadle wakes to find her husband, the tailor Jasper Boadle, dead. As the daughter of the local cunning woman, Philadelphia is soon accused of murder by witchcraft. Her future and that of her own daughter is at stake, unless she can convince the village she’s done no wrong…

Paperback available through online retailers or order at your local bookstore. Order ebook or audiobook now at the link below

https://geni.us/theheirloom

Cover Reveal — The Keepsake

Published on by Carol Jones

The moment when your editor sends you a visual for your next book’s cover has to be one of the most fun parts of a writer’s job. And here it is, the stunning artwork for my next novel The Keepsake.

Saturday: Pot-au-feu for luncheon. Father willed away inheritance. Betrayed by Edward.

The Keepsake

1832. The morning after her father’s funeral, Prudence Merryfield wakes to the liberating thought that this is the first day of her new life. At thirty-five and unmarried, she is now mistress of her own fate. But a cruel revelation at the reading of her father’s will forces Prudence to realise that taking only the most drastic action will set her free. 

Present day. Eliza is gifted a family heirloom by her aunt – a Georgian pocket book, belonging to her ancestor, Prudence Merryfield, whose existence reverberates through the lives of generations of Eliza’s family, the Ambroses. Intrigued by what she reads inside, Eliza is drawn more and more into the infamous ‘Merryfield Mystery’. What happened to Prudence who so bravely dared to defy convention two hundred years ago – then disappeared?

Ebook and Audio available 29 September 2022.Hardback and trade paperback available January 2023. order now using the link below.

http://smarturl.it/TKJB

Road Trip One

Published on by Carol Jones

The furred and feathered friends you make are the highlight of any road trip.

One of the best aspects of research has to be the road trip. In researching The Secrets of Bridgewater Bay I made several road trips. I dragged my partner around south west Victoria a couple of times (posts to follow) but exploring North Devon on a trip to the UK was most exciting for this Australian author.

The rugged coastline is wild and reminded me a great deal of the Victorian coast. The biggest difference between the two is that North Devon is so green and lush, whereas the south west coast of Victoria is sheer rock with windblown coastal scrub. The Devon coast is known for its smugglers and wreckers in centuries past, while this region of Victoria is known as the Shipwreck Coast. Both are highly dramatic and make for wonderful scenery.

She noticed the headlands jutting out into the Bristol Channel, like giant paws clawing a tenuous hold from the sea

The Secrets of Bridgewater Bay

Our road trip around North Devon included getting lost on Exmoor in a fog because I thought I knew better than the satellite navigation. I still say it deliberately led me astray! We had a few close calls on those narrow one-lane country roads too until we got the hang of the lay-bys.

We were charmed by Ilfracombe, Lynton and Lee Bay but it was Valley of the Rocks where we had our most surprising encounter. I’d read about the feral goats living in the area and was scanning the rock formations searching for them, quite excited to spot a few in the distance, when I turned around and discovered these fellas walking along the top of a stone wall. Of course I had to include them in the book.

Feral goats at Valley of the Rocks

Nan’s Cottage

Published on by Carol Jones

When I decided to set the first chapter of The Secrets of Bridgewater Bay in a Victorian coastal town, Port Fairy came to mind immediately. It’s a popular holiday town but also one of the oldest European settlements in Victoria. On the banks of the Moyne River, adjacent to a small historic island that is home to a colony of shearwaters and with a great surf beach, Port Fairy has plenty of atmosphere. It’s also a fishing port and its streets are lined with early colonial architecture.

She listened to the water lapping at the pylons and fancied it beckoning softly to all those who would venture out into unknown seas.

The Secrets of Bridgewater Bay

The Secrets of Bridgewater Bay is a dual-time novel and my contemporary protagonist’s family hail from this region of Australia. I decided I needed to find her grandmother a suitable house in Port Fairy. The house where she discovers that first clue to the disappearance of her great-grandmother Rose.

There are numerous simple stone cottages in Port Fairy, mostly built in the first half of the nineteenth century. Many are built from the local basalt, a volcanic rock found throughout the area. South-west Victoria is pockmarked with 400 volcanoes, now long dormant, but they have left behind craters filled with lakes. More of that in another post.

For the moment, imagine my character Molly sifting through the contents of her dead grandmother’s home and wandering along the boardwalk by the river, haunted by the ghosts of her own past.

The boardwalk along the Moyne River, Port Fairy