Book excerpt: Ghost Gum Valley is the second book from Australian author Johanna Nicholls. This sweeping saga is set in the early days of the Colony of New South Wales and follows the adventures of Isabel de Rolland, an English aristocrat descended from the Plantagenets, as she is sent out to the penal colony to marry Marmaduke Gamble, in a deal organised by their elders. The debts of Isabel’s family are paid in exchange for the respectability that her lineage gives the rich ex- convict Gamble family. From the inauspicious beginnings of their arranged marriage, Isabel and Marmaduke develop a grudging friendship that looks to bloom into something more. But the secrets of the past are destined to haunt them and the madness and darkness of their families threaten to overwhelm them. This wonderful new story has something for everyone; a bygone era brought to life, the importance of being free of the past to embrace the future and above all a wonderful love story between two of fiction’s most delightful characters.