Martin Edmond

Dean Randall has sponsored a young Chinese orphan Mei Mei for many years, when she arrives in Sydney out of the blue to thank him, their lives are changed forever.

A disturbed young woman runs away from her New Zealand home and hides away in an Australian boarding house, named Terra Nova. There she finds that every one else in the boarding house is just as zany as she is, and on some levels make her seem sane despite the voices in her head and her strange visions.

Chan and his older mate Kim prospect for gold in 1890s Otago. Marooned until they can pay off their debts and return to China; they’ve been fruitlessly working their claim for 12 and 27 years respectively. Chan faces racism, isolation, extreme weather, threatening surveyors, opium dens and a circus romance.