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.
JULIE BROOKS 
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