In her bestselling historical romances Tamar and White Feathers, Deborah Challinor introduced feisty Tamar Deane, the Cornish seamstress who became the owner of Auckland′s most successful brothel, and whose scandalous affair with Kepa, handsome son of a rangatira, resulted in the birth of her ill...
But then, they were doing exactly as they had the first time they’d landed on the little beach on Sydney Cove’s western shore, except that this time Gideon was rowing the boat instead of the taciturn waterman who had ferried them on their previous journey. And this night the moon was high and bri...
As the last one was unwound and the single remaining cotton pad peeled off, she picked up the hand mirror but held it in her lap. John and Myrna both carefully looked out the window. No one moved. The clock on the mantel ticked loudly.‘Shall we leave ye, lassie?’ Myrna asked.Tamar said, ‘No, it’s...
After that he was unpleasantly lucid for a considerable period of time. He was carefully transferred to a narrow table, then told that the doctor would be with him in a few minutes. Both of his legs ached monstrously and he wanted desperately to sit up and have a look at the damage, but a searing...
The women, jammed onto the waistdeck with their ratty possessions heaped around them, waited expectantly. Bella Jackson stood beside her two trunks wearing a full skirt of oxblood velvet, a beautifully fitted jacket in emerald taffeta, a very fancy bonnet with a black ostrich feather and her grey...
The costermonger’s rough voice barked in her ear and she started, the noise of the crowded fruit and vegetable market rushing back into her head to drown out the ringing silence that pulsed there with every thump of her heart.‘Pardon?’ she said, flexing her tingling hands. Her chest burnt and she...
But, forcing her eyes open, she realised she’d already died and gone to Hell for her sins because, only inches from her own, was the face of the Devil—yellow slit eyes set in deepest black, and needle-sharp fangs bared in a vicious snarl wreathed in breath straight from Hades itself. ‘Oh, get off...
Very quickly, however, she’d realised that Rachel hadn’t wanted to be seen, not even by Sarah and Friday, and though she didn’t understand why, she knew there’d be a reason. Nevertheless, for an entire day she’d worried that Rachel might have moved permanently to Sarah’s house, perhaps to help Sa...
Throwing off the covers, she slid out of bed and looked in the mirror. God. She hadn’t taken her make-up off last night and she looked a sight. The floorboards were cool on her bare feet as she padded down the hall to the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face and rubbed off the worst of t...
From the window he watched a lone gull flapping its arse off in the overcast sky and getting nowhere, buffeted by an onshore wind whipping through the harbour entrance. He knew how it felt. He was feeling aggrieved and exceedingly disagreeable, but these days when did he feel anything else? He ha...
Kura, one of the Ngati Pono girls, had recently told her that he hadn’t wanted to attend Isla when she was ill because she was Pakeha. It had been an unnecessary thing to say, and Isla hadn’t understood why Kura had been so unkind until Mere explained that Kura wanted to be Tai’s wife. ‘Oh,’ Isla...
Her eyes were gritty and sore, her backside was tender, and the skin on the inside of her legs raw from rubbing against the stirrup leathers. She was hungry and desperately needed a hot drink and a wash. Fighting the urge to ride straight to Lonsdale Street and start knocking on doors around Tatt...
On the same day, across the Tasman in Sydney and Melbourne, police staged mass raids on the offices of the Australian Seamen’s Union and the Australian Waterside Workers’ Federation, tearing out drawers, ransacking cabinets and confiscating large numbers of records and files. No one was arrested,...