Johanna Craven

They say only the brave ride Bridles Lane at night. Vicar Richard Dodge speaks of ghosts and demons, conducting elaborate exorcisms in his churchyard overlooking the lane. And with the villagers sheltering in fear, local smugglers carry their haul up the road....

English settler Grace Ashwell flees an abusive lover in Hobart Town, with six-year-old Violet in tow. In her head, escape is easy: find work in the northern settlements and earn enough for passage home to London....

Journey through the colonies of 19th-century Australia with three stand-alone novels of love, loss, survival, and redemption. This collection includes One of Us Buried, Forgotten Places, and Playing the Ghost....

Australia, 1857. Life is brutal on the goldfields of Castlemaine. With death around every corner, people are all too willing to believe in ghosts and embrace the spiritualism movement finding its way across the seas....

In 1806, a fateful decision sends Eleanor Marling from the salons of London to a prison ship bound for New South Wales. She is put to work at the female factory of Parramatta, where the women’s only hope of food and lodgings is to offer their bodies to the settlement’s men....

Isaac and Scarlett Bailey’s attempts to escape the smuggling syndicate have left their lives in pieces. Isaac’s children are missing, and Scarlett’s battle with the darkness inside her has just become far more difficult....

Scarlett Bailey has left home with a knife in her hand to search for the father she has grown up believing dead. Determined to punish him for abandoning his family, Scarlett finds herself drawn into the world of a local press gang....

Isaac Bailey returns home after four years at sea, expecting a welcome from his family. Instead, he finds his parents' graves and his sister, Scarlett, waiting to be rescued from the orphanage. Against his will, Isaac is thrust into a world of smuggling....

Vicar Richard Dodge speaks of ghosts and demons, conducting elaborate exorcisms in his churchyard overlooking the lane. And with the villagers sheltering in fear, local smugglers carry their haul up the road to be hidden in the safety of the church....