Novels

The Journey

Jacirama is an Amazonian Indian who lives in the isolated tribe in the Amazon rainforest. A shaman’s apprentice, he has always been different. His skin is more prone to burning from the sun; his eyes are the colour of the sky. This was passed off to him by the chief as a gift from the gods. Born under the moon – Jaci, he was given the name Jacirama. 

One day he encounters some strangers, white men. He is suspicious of them, as he has been taught to be from myths told around the fireside by the elders. He is shocked to see his own blue eyes reflected back at him in a stranger. 

He questions his mother about this and learns the truth, that he is not of pure Tupi-guarani blood. His real father was a travelling Ethno-botanist named Jerry who stayed with the tribe twenty-two years earlier. 

Jacirama feels he doesn’t belong, in his own skin or in the tribe. He must leave, to find his father, to find where he really comes from. He leaves with only the names his mother has given him – Jerry and Boston. He encounters illegal gold mines, devastating clear felling of the forest, disease, a Jaguar attack and the world of the white man in his bid to find his father, and in doing so find himself. This is the tale of that journey.

Our Angels

In the spring of 1969, a 17-year-old girl is clipped by a bus, falls down the bank and drowns in the creek. In spirit she experiences her family’s grief, souls trapped on earth and her funeral, until reunited with her loved ones on the other side. 

A second scenario of the same scene plays out, only this time the bus misses her by inches. The innocent life of a teenager whose only concern was getting together with her beau at the ball is complicated dramatically by a teenage pregnancy. Her very Catholic parents hide the pregnancy by sending her to live in Chile with her Aunt who runs a home for pregnant girls in Santiago. 

In the ensuing months she discovers inadvertently and gradually that she can see and communicate with spirits. She becomes embroiled in Pinochet’s 1973 military coup and is imprisoned. 

This is the story of Janey’s growing psychic ability to see and talk with those in spirit, which leads to horrific realisations and life changing consequences during the military coup.

The Night of Fire

The Night of Fire is set in Mt Albert, Auckland. Adeline, a colonialist’s daughter lives in a villa on a farm near the mountain in the 1870s. She has always harboured an irrational fear of the mountain erupting. Diagnosed with the ‘pissing evil’, leads to devastating consequences for her. 

Jessica lives in Mt Albert in 2015. A precocious teenager, her cell-phone and friends are all she cares about. She has Type 1 Diabetes which she manages with an insulin pump. 

In October 2015, Owairaka erupts, spewing hot lava over the mountain. The city erupts into a state of chaos and civil emergency. Jessica’s family’s thoughts of escape in their car are hindered by gridlocked roads. They make a fate-filled decision. They grab some groceries and belongings and hole up in the large cavernous lava cave in their back yard for safety. All is well until an offshoot of lava rolls over the entrance blocking them in. No one knows that they are there. 

This is the story of the Jessica and her family’s entrapment and bid for survival. Adeline’s fate plays out its sad tale, her destiny becoming unwittingly tied to that of Jessica and her family, despite their separation in time.