Diamond of the Desert

Diamond of the Desert is a historical adventure-romance novel set against the backdrop of Western Australia's colonial expansion in the 1850s to 1870s.

It features Maggie O'Brien, a fisherman's daughter as she grows up before and during the Irish Famine, and who at the age of just twenty becomes an early pioneer to the north of Western Australia. Juxtaposed against her austere upbringing is James Maguire, wealthy Protestant landlord; and Richard Williams, a carpenter who lives in poverty and in constant trouble with the law as he struggles to care for his ill, single parent father in regional England.

As Ireland and England emerge from famine and brutal social and economic conditions, the three characters are sent half a world away to the struggling Swan River Colony in Western Australia, each arriving under very different circumstances.

Diamond of the Desert tells the true and complete history of colonial Western Australia through the experiences of the characters. The hardships, realities and truths of pioneer life are uncovered as our characters variously rise to the challenges and descend into the darkness of colonial expansion amidst a story of love-triangle romance, adventure, the darkness of greed and the light of connection and love.