I’m obsessed with writing and am always striving to improve my craft. I experience degrees of painful pleasure in doing so—pleasurable when I come close to nailing the words and sentences I’m searching for as I write, painful when I spend days revising over and over everything I’ve written. It took me sixteen years to research and write my first novel, The Albatross Necklace, in 2012, for example. It crashed and burned, but I learned from my inexperience and wrote the next six from its ashes. I didn’t give up.

My writing style is as rhythmic and supple as I can make it. I do my best to produce compelling sentences you’ll enjoy reading, varying the length of my paragraphs and balancing a mix of action and dialogue. I make the settings as visual as possible and bring my familiar characters to life, so that you share their emotions as they think, smile, laugh outright or grieve and cry.

My research is thorough and my references accurate. I’ve accessed sources as disparate as the Archives in Middelburg and Cape Town, the Shipwrecks’ Museum in Fremantle and, of course, Google—the latter with a hefty pinch of salt. One thing often leads to another, and I’ve disappeared down many a rabbit-hole in search of the truth. Some say that if you need to research you’re not ready to tell a story—but many of my stories lie like opals in the rough in the tailings of the research.

I work with my insightful editor to make my word choices, plot sequences and storylines as close to faultless as we can get them, so that you’ll find reading my books a surprising and interesting experience.

If you’re wondering about the logo on my books, yes, Dune Publishing is my own indie publishing house, registered in Australia.

Why do I self-publish? Simple. There are so many would-be writers looking for an agent and then a recognised publisher these days, it’s dishearteningly competitive—and it’s a long, complex and painstaking process. If your work is considered commercial enough to interest them, it will take an achingly long time before your first book comes off the presses and onto the market, without the guarantee of a second book. By then you’ve sold your rights, forfeited a large percentage of your potential earnings, gifted your precious writing time to on-call book signings and appearances and probably handed over control of your website.

Besides all that, your publisher may call for a number of rewrites, change your title and cover, control the pricing, favour the established front list authors and direct you to follow the latest changing fads and fashions on the market in your future writing.

So I’ve chosen the indie route. I own my publishing rights, have all my current and new books available to the world at all times, financially forfeit only the percentages for processing on printing and marketing platforms like Amazon, and control my online media presence and interaction with my readers. The system works well for me. I have ownership throughout and it’s economical. Marketing is an issue, but it’s an interesting challenge finding my way through the labyrinth, unravelling a ball of string and keeping a sharp eye out for the Minotaur.

I know what you’re going to ask: Which version of the word ‘deadly’ am I using in the book’s subtitle? Both, actually. The adventures the boys are on are amazing, until they turn sinister with Mozzie Buzzacott’s murder. ‘Deadly’ works both ways and that’s why I used it. You can take your pick as you read the book. It’s wicked, I reckon.

If you’re wondering about the abalone shell albatross pendant Alicia is wearing on the cover of her memoir, it was a gift from Lennard Currie. His mother Mary found the original, along with other artefacts and coins, in a pewter tobacco tin in the back of a cave on the cliffs overlooking the Hutt River Pink Lake at Lucky Bay. Lennard thinks the original belonged to Gerrit de Waal, survivor of a shipwreck on the cliffs north of Kalbarri in 1712. He is convinced Gerrit was his ancestor.

When Mary presented the original to the Maritime Museum, Lennard had a copy made, using two shells from the Greenough River mouth—one for the base, the other for the outline of the albatross he glued to it. He gave the pendant to Alicia and she’s worn it ever since.

I thought that made for a good story—and gave the book cover an interesting look.

If you look closely, you’ll recognise the coin Lennard often tosses when he comes to a fork in the road and has a decision to make. It was in the battered pewter tobacco tin, along with other coins, his mother Mary found in the back of a cave on the cliffs at Lucky Bay. She gave the tin and its contents to WA’s Maritime Museum, but kept this shilling (schelling) and gave it to Lennard. He’s convinced it belonged to Gerrit de Waal, survivor of the Zuytdorp shipwreck on the cliffs north of Kalbarri in 1712. He suspects Gerrit is his likely ancestor.

On this preparatory book cover graphic, you’ll notice a three-masted cargo vessel (retourschip) on the horizon, and a picture of the Town Hall in Middelburg, Zeeland, where the Zuytdorp was built in 1701.

You have to admire the thoroughness of Lennard’s research into the building and voyages of the Zuytdorp, while piecing together his ancestry. He often follows a lead, willing to follow every clue in search of the truth.

I’ve followed his example, and procured these photographs of the coin with permission from photographer Pat Baker of the Fremantle Shipwrecks Museum.

What did the Zuytdorp look like? Here’s a painting of a naval frigate, the Rotterdam, anchored on the Maas, painted by Nicolaas Baur in 1807. While a naval frigate is larger than a VOC retourschip —‘return ship’—cargo vessel, it gives you a picture of the sort of ships the brilliant Dutch shipwrights were building during the Dutch Golden Age.

The 45 metre keel of the Zuytdorp was laid in January 1701 in the Middelburg shipyard, and she was launched in early July—in a remarkable six months. It’s no wonder Peter the Great of Russia visited the Amsterdam shipyards in 1697 with his team of carpenters, to learn the tricks of the trade from the Europe’s finest shipwrights. He assisted in building the Peter en Paul while he was there.

The 100-metre-high, cantilevered lookout platform of the Skywalk projects 25 metres beyond the rim of the Murchison Gorge above the river. A walk out on the platform gives you unrestricted and unforgettable views of the gorge and beyond. You can imagine the terror experienced by fourteen-year-old Mozzie Buzzacott when he was flung from the end on January 4, 2025. His story is told in The Dreams Of Summer Dartson.

This is the tidal diving pool the 6 boys in The Dreams Of Summer Dartson found when they explored the Zuytdorp cliffs at Kalbarri. They tested their courage and skills by jumping and somersaulting into it when the tide was in, timing their leaps according to the breaking waves filling it.

You’ll find this etching by Mattheus Smallegange in his New Chronicle of Zeeland, published in 1696. It gives you a good idea of daily life in the city of Middelburg, particularly the lively activity of citizens among the canals, quaysides and buildings. The Tall John (de Lange Jan) Tower stands out in the distance above the Abbey. Gerrit de Waal grew up in this environment from 1686-1711. I enjoyed researching his story and telling it in his memoir The Kite Flyer.

How authentic is the five star scoring system on the Goodreads website? A visit will show the majority of averaged scores sits at 4.5 stars across the board. Hardly convincing as a basis for judging a work.

At the same time there’s a surprisingly large number of one star scores registered on books on the site unsupported by a written review. Trolls appear to be having a field day, spending their time setting up the damning single star scores, evidently without reading the books. Many authors have complained. It’s like having unwanted and misleading graffiti on the thumbnails without a commentary.

Interestingly my ebook versions of The Glass Cenotaph (Now Bright Flame Dark Shadows) and Life & Times of Gerrit de Waal (Now The Kite Flyer) are among the victims. Both are scored at one star, without written justification and without any other score. So don’t be put off by the apparently inauthentic record. Read my work and judge for yourself.