Nicole Alexander

Nicole Alexander was born and raised on the black soil plains of New South Wales, Australia on a sprawling rural property selected by her great-grandfather in 1893. In those early days a simple timber hut was quickly pegged out and built and the men spent their days cutting timber, erecting fences and shepherding the sheep that they overlanded from a previous property to the south-east. Nicole says, "I imagine the days and nights back then were equally long, the monotony only broken by the monthly arrival of the postal and supply rider who brought stores and mail to those remoter settlers. One of the items delivered to my great-grandfather in that first year was a copy of Alexander Duma’s The Count of Monte Christo. The novel arrived in a saddle-bag on the back of a packhorse wrapped in brown paper and twine and I can only imagine my great-grandfather’s excitement when he unwrapped the parcel. I see him reading by a flickering candle, sitting beneath a fat, lazy moon and the bush stretching out around him in an unending silence. I heard these stories and many more as a child and from an early age I have loved Australian pastoral history." Nicole Alexander has a Masters in creative writing and is published internationally. She is the author of 11 best-selling Australian historical novels. Her novels, poetry, travel and genealogy articles have been published in Australia, America, Germany, Singapore, Russia and the Ukraine. Her first novel, The Bark Cutters was short-listed for an Australian Book Industry Award in 2011.