Tag: fiction

Writing A Haunting at Venus Bay

Published on by Carol Jones

I love to write historical mysteries where a present-day protagonist seeks to solve a mystery from the past (willingly or unwillingly). But I usually set myself the additional challenge of a genre twist in each new novel. In The Keepsake I wanted to include a shipwreck where a character is marooned on a tiny island. In The Heirloom I decided to include a little magic by writing about women persecuted as witches. In my latest novel A Haunting at Venus Bay, I set out to write a ghost story.

I hoped to write the sort of story where the reader isn’t sure if events have a psychological cause or if … there really is a ghost. I began by immersing myself in the genre. Re-reading Shirley Jackson and Susan Black’s works, adding a little Sarah Waters and a collection by Kate Mosse. I revisited Henry James’ classic The Turn of the Screw and delved into Edith Wharton and Edgar Allen Poe’s collections amongst others.

It became apparent that the setting in a ghost story is often a character in itself. It needs the potential to become truly creepy. Perhaps that’s why many ghost stories are set in remote locations where access can be cut off suddenly. They usually take place in old, crumbling houses (mansions and castles work well), borderlands, or threatening natural environments. Lurking animals, unpredictable weather, also have their place.

I chose the small community of Venus Bay, Victoria, on Australia’s rugged south coast for my setting. Situated on a narrow peninsular between wild ocean on one side and a shallow inlet on the other, there is only one road in or out. The ocean side is bordered by dense coastal scrub, while the inlet is bordered by wetlands, mud flats or banksia forest. Kangaroos, wombats, and a multitude of bird life abound. Oh … and there are also snakes.

So do the events of the story have a psychological cause? Or is there a ghost … or ghosts? You will need to read it to decide for yourself.

A home. A disappearance. And a mystery that spans a century…

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 challenge, 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 clearly who wants a wife who will also be 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 forever…

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

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

TRADE PAPERBACK AVAILABLE AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. UK paperback available to pre-order for July 2026. EBOOK AND AUDIO AVAILABLE now.

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.

Writing The Heirloom

Published on by Carol Jones

Story ideas are elusive. They usually sneak up on me, a little idea here, another there, until one day I have a number of characters, a gestational plot and some themes flitting about in my head.

In the case of The Heirloom, I began thinking I’d like to write a story about a ‘witch’ but not one set during a historical witch hunt, nor one steeped in big magic, more the everyday kind of historical wise woman who finds herself mired in trouble. The setting snuck up on me during research when I found that Sussex had a long history of ‘witchery’, but no one had ever been executed for it. The fact that some of my distant ancestors hailed from there added to the allure. And somehow a little family secret about one ancestor marrying her deceased husband’s nephew inspired another story thread.

A week driving about East and West Sussex researching the locations, architecture and countryside provided plenty of research material once I returned home to Australia. I pored over maps and photographs I had taken, especially those from a visit to the Weald and Downland Living Museum near Chichester. This reconstructed village helped me picture the cottage where my main character, Philadelphia grew up, and the garden she and her mother Susanna tended.

For the Queensland settings, I lived in Brisbane as a child and have spent many holidays there since. The Brisbane River is a powerful presence throughout the city, winding through its suburbs. And the architecture is quite different to other Australian capitals. The landscape of the granite belt in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales where parts of the story are set is rugged and would have been quite forbidding for those first Europeans who came that way.

As well as her sideline as a wise woman, I gave Philadelphia a more respectable trade as a milliner. Two hundred years ago, clothing was handmade and hats were obligatory. Many women worked in this field, including several generations of my ancestors. And one of the joys of writing historical fiction is researching my characters’ wardrobes!

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

https://geni.us/theheirloom

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