ALCHEMY AND ROSE was inspired by the last great gold rush on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island in the 1870s.
The quest for gold lured a flood of hopefuls from Europe, America, Australia and Asia and it brought Will from Scotland, with a price on his head. A shipwreck at the mouth of the Hokitika river also brought Rose, borne like flotsam upon a wave. It brought others too, the disgraced and the determined, each with their own quest to follow.
Alchemy is the means by which men seek to turn base metal into gold but, for the characters in ALCHEMY AND ROSE, there are transformations of another kind. They come from the old countries to the new, and follow their quests through recklessness, misadventure, mischief and attempted murder. From Scotland to the goldfields of New Zealand and on to the booming cities of Victorian Australia they wrestle with fate to find their fortunes.
‘…its portrayal of life in a gold-rush town is vivid, and Rose’s story is absorbing…’ The Times
Published January 2021 by Hodder and Stoughton.