Guest blogger: Cathleen Ross

I live part time in the Megalong Valley and really love the quiet and solitude here. It’s a great place for writers to write without disturbance, although it’s an isolated place, and the one road in and out of the valley is subject to collapsing. Often, it looks like nothing goes on here. I heard a strange story about a meth factory being set up in the bush. Apparently, one of the meth men was murdered and put into an unmarked grave. A keen gardener, this story intrigued me from the moment I heard it, because the valley base is made of granite and it’s very clear if there is any disturbance to the earth. Although the police spent a long time combing over the valley farm trying to find the body, it was never found. Although people love the Blue Mountains, the place also has a dark side. It’s a place where anything could happen, so I used it in my story.

As a writer, the story did get me thinking, though. How easy would it be to get rid of someone when they’d passed their use-by date, especially in 1918? The Megalong was remote then and difficult to access at the end of the First World War. Pioneers lived in the valley and, unless you could ride a horse, or drive a dray, the one road in and out of the valley was difficult to navigate. The entrepreneur, Mark Foy, who built the Hydro Majestic, had established a shooting box in the valley and used to bring his guests down to the valley to hunt. Far from Sydney, the mountains was a great place for illicit affairs.

I had the idea to set a story in my imaginary Hunting Lodge where my heroine, Anna, finds a pool of blood in one of the cottages on the ground and a desperate handprint. No one will talk about what happened but everyone knows what happened, except my heroine.

You can find Cathleen here: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

An Unsuitable Bride

It’s 1918, the war’s nearly over and people are looking for fun. Anna Hall is delighted when her wealthy, older fiancé, Max Elliot invites her on a holiday to the Hunting Lodge in the beautiful Megalong Valley, Blue Mountains. But once there, she finds everything is not as it seems. Everyone has secrets and she soon finds herself entangled in a dangerous web of lies and deception.

Anna has a secret too but she cannot admit it for fear of vilification.

Max has a secret that will destroy Anna’s life, only he’s not prepared to tell her until he’s had his fun with her.

Jack-of-all-trades at the Hunting Lodge, Thomas Rutherford, has three secrets. He’s fallen for Anna, knows the real story as to why her fiancé, Max can’t marry her; he also doesn’t wish to admit he has shellshock and can no longer work as a doctor.

But the worst secret of all is how did Max’s last fiancée, Cora Hanson die?

Will Anna be next?