The fabulous Emerald Romance has re-released one of my personal favourites (as an author I'm allowed to have a few favourites...even more than a few), This Time Forever, (formerly This Forever Game). Perhaps it's time to say that some my Australis Island novels and novellas are stand alone and contemporary titles, with a few upcoming ones being shorter single titles.
Emerald Romance will re-release all four other previously published Australis Island contemporary novels this year.
ANYHOOO - one of my esteemed colleagues, the very talented Susanne Bellamy (who edited Island Proposal) suggested that a bit of Australis Island history might be in order.
You might know that I'm a local on Kangaroo Island, South Australia - a magical place full of magical scenery, wildlife and produce. The people - well, I make them up.
I felt I wanted to write about KI, but living and working here might have made things a little bit sticky on occasion. I decided to take all the stories I'd written and set them on a fictional place, namely Australis Island and hopefully avoid said sticky.
So if I were going to do that, I'd need a bit of history. KI has as rich an Australian history as any other location in the country - its exception, like some other places, is that it was never settled as a penal colony. Rather it attracted escaped convicts and ship-jumpers, sealers and whalers who often made the place their home. This is pre European South Australian official settlement, I might add. Our first official landings were in 1836, before the South Australian mainland arrivals.
These were generally solo men; women were often brought from far away, the most well-known of whom came from Tasmania and were aboriginal. It is said that these women on KI outlived Trugannini as the last remaining Tasmanian full bloods. That's an amazing call.
So. I wondered how I would populate my Australis Island. I didn't have the ancestors arrive pre-official settlement, which was about 1802-3, but post 1836 so that they had a legitimate reason to arrive.
They were immigrants from Europe as many were, and for some reason they came from the Netherlands - if for nothing else, because they'd be tall, strapping, hard working stock. (For the record, one side of my own ancestors are short, dark haired and a wee bit fiery from another island in the Mediterranean known for its ...ah, Organisation.)
Henricus and Sybilla arrived late 1800s and they had four sons. Most of my heroes and heroines descend from these four brothers and their wives. The family even has its own genealogy on myheritage.com to keep me on my toes.
But there are characters in my Australis Island novels who fall outside this sprawling fictional family and who are not connected to them.
The characters in The Time Forever are some of these non-related characters, but they do know of Australis Islanders who are descendants.
But that's enough from me. There's lots of stories yet to come from Australis Island, so please, stay tuned - I'd love for you to catch up and visit - if just from your chair - the magic of Australis Island.
