Joan Druett

Auckland Island is a godforsaken place in the middle of the Southern Ocean, 285 miles south of New Zealand. With year-round freezing rain and howling winds, it is one of the most forbidding places in the world. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death.In 1864 Captain Thomas Musgrave and his crew of four aboard the schooner Grafton wreck on the southern end of the island. Utterly alone in a dense coastal forest, plagued by stinging blowflies...

U.S. Exploring Expedition linguist Wiki Coffin sails with the famous convoy of ships toward Brazil, where he faces a whole new set of trials and tribulations, not the least being blamed for the sudden grave illness of a fellow crewman. But soon his own fate will be the least of his problems. As the great flagship Vincennes leads the convoy under the dubious command of eccentric captain Charles Wilkes toward a dramatic entrance in the port of...

Wiki Coffin, linguist aboard the U.S. Exploring Expedition, the famous voyage meant to put America at the forefront of 19th century scientific discovery, brings many skills to his job. Whether he's translating native languages, assisting his good friend Captain George Rochester as unofficial first mate, or upholding the rule of law as deputy to the sheriff of the port of Virginia, Wiki is never far from the action aboard the seven ships that make...

A raging hurricane. A tiny fishing village in a distant land. A London nightclub dancer stumbles into the local clinic with the famous fire-fighter who carried her to New Zealand. The wife of an American shipping tycoon is on board his new luxury yacht as it battles the storm to reach the village. The young wife of a wine-maker struggles through mud, wind and rain to call for help, as her husband has been mortally hurt.All three women are in labor.All...

By making Nelson O'Cain his partner, Michael Gardiner has disinherited his daughter, Jerusha, who is in far-off Massachusetts, learning the skills of a herb-woman and midwife. So, he devises the crazy idea of an arranged marriage with Nelson, to salve his conscience and set matters straight. Unconvinced, yet aware of the logic of a convenient arrangement, Nelson voyages from Borneo to Boston, bearing a letter to Jerusha that sketches out her father's...

Condemned to death by the Sultan of Brunei, Nelson O'Cain seeks to save himself with a tattoo of a dragon, a rampant dragon with wings outstretched, the same dragon that was carved on an obelisk on a small island at the mouth of a river in Borneo. Not only was the pillar supposed to be a man who had been turned to stone, but the carved dragon was a vital clue to where Hochman the pirate buried a great treasure. Captain Michael Gardiner and his seafaring...