by Edeana Malcolm
In 1852, Jane Inglis loses her job as a maid in Quebec City. In desperation, she rashly decides to follow a young man she barely knows on a five-month voyage to the other side of the world. She soon learns that the stories James Houghton has told her are not all true.
In Australia, Jane decides to make her own fortune. But nothing turns out to be as she easy as she hopes it will be: not panning for gold, nor cooking for gold fossickers, not even marrying the man she loves. After many trials and adventures, she boards a ship for another five-month voyage home alone, completing a circumnavigation of the globe.
In Quebec, she must face the consequences of her past rash acts. But a new life awaits her, unlike any she has dared to dream of.
Maid of Gold is a historical novel based on the lives of the author’s great-great-grandparents, Jane Inglis and James Houghton.
I write historical fiction, often, but not always, based on family history.
Edeana Malcolm has written nine historical novels. Her latest, Maid of Gold, published in 2024, is set in the 1850s and tells the story of a couple from Quebec City who travel to the Australian Gold Rush in Melbourne and then return home again circumnavigating the world by sailing ship. It is based on one of the stories of her ancestors.
