The history behind the stories
My novels are grounded in extensive historical research. Along the way, I’ve discovered stories, people and details that were too fascinating not to share – some of which found their way into my novels, while others remained part of the research journey.
Here are some of those discoveries.
AUSTRALIAN HISTORY
‘A fine silk dress did not make a lady’
The extraordinary story of Quong Tart, the Chinese-Australian tea merchant who became one of Sydney’s most respected and beloved figures despite the anti-Chinese prejudice of the time.
Cave dwellers of the Kurnell Peninsula
During the Great Depression, some Sydneysiders escaped poverty by making their homes in caves along the cliffs of the Kurnell Peninsula.
The human alarm-clocks of the 1800s
Before alarm clocks became affordable, workers paid people called ‘knocker-uppers’ to wake them for work – sometimes with a long stick, and sometimes with a pea-shooter.
The worst woman in Sydney
Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh ruled Sydney’s underworld during the razor-gang wars of the 1920s and 1930s – and Tilly was anything but an ordinary criminal.
WOMEN & SOCIAL CHANGE
Women against women’s suffrage
It may be surprising today, but some women actively opposed giving women the vote – including Queen Victoria herself.
‘Smothering parrots and bedding Abbesses’
Victorian slang could be wonderfully strange: ‘smothering a parrot’ meant drinking absinthe, while an ‘Abbess’ was a brothel keeper.
WAR, WORK & EVERYDAY LIFE
The canary girls of World War I
Thousands of women took dangerous jobs in munitions factories during World War I – where TNT could turn their skin, hair and nails yellow.
When men took up embroidery
For wounded soldiers suffering from shell shock or physical injuries, embroidery became an unexpected form of rehabilitation during World War I.
Remembering a loved one with hair
In Victorian times, a lock of a loved one’s hair could become a treasured piece of jewellery – a very intimate way of remembering the dead.
Ice-skating hedgehogs and duelling dormice
Victorian taxidermists turned dead animals into extraordinary scenes of everyday life, from hedgehogs ice-skating to dormice fighting duels.
PARIS, ART & THE EXTRAORDINARY
Elephant broth for Christmas
When Prussian forces surrounded Paris in 1870, the city’s food supplies dwindled until Parisians were eating horses, cats, dogs, rats – and even the zoo’s elephants.
The macabre cabarets of Paris
In late nineteenth-century Paris, you could spend an evening at cabarets where coffins, skeletons and human bones became part of the entertainment.
The painting that revolutionised art
Édouard Manet’s controversial painting of an ordinary naked woman shocked Paris – and helped change the course of modern art.
DISEASE, MEDICINE & SOCIAL ATTITUDES
When your sex life sent you crazy
General Paralysis of the Insane was the devastating final stage of untreated syphilis – a disease surrounded by secrecy, stigma and misunderstanding in the nineteenth century.
COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu – Part 1
While researching the Spanish Flu for Orphan Rock, the arrival of COVID-19 prompted a fascinating question: how differently do people respond to pandemics a century apart?
COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu – Part 2
Fear, denial, social restrictions and changing behaviour weren’t unique to COVID-19 – people experienced many of the same reactions during the Spanish Flu.
COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu – Part 3
From the Black Death onwards, pandemics have repeatedly brought out fear, prejudice and scapegoating – but also remarkable resilience and compassion.
