WHERE EAGLES SOAR

by Thomas Foster

WHERE EAGLES SOAR Historical Fiction Adventure The Incas called gold nuggets the Tears of the Sun. Gold nuggets were valued beyond price and used only to fashion religious votives to worship their sun god. It was also recognised that tears of the sun could found only where the eagles soared. During the early 1850’s Australia was found to have more gold than anywhere on earth. Two young men, an Australian and a Chinese learn of a rumour about a new, untapped source of gold in a valley where giant wedge tailed eagles soared high above the gold rich valley and decide to take a chance. Together they head for this new Eldorado where they find life is harder than they imagined. Together they battle claim jumpers, flood, and fever before finding riches beyond their wildest dreams. They are among the first to realize the great wealth of gold held in the quartz reefs of the district. Finding a quartz reef laced with enough gold to build a dozen fortunes is one thing, to mine it in a country where there is as yet no gold mining machinery is another. Together they source the knowledge brought to Bendigo in the minds of those who have seen it all before, in the mines of Wales, and California. Utilizing this priceless knowledge they find a way to mine their fabulous reef. This they do, but great riches attract those who will stop at nothing, not even murder, to get their hands on that wealth. While Harry and Fee become the toast of Bendigo society, mixing with the likes of Lola Montez and the novelist Celeste de Chabriall, every day they must defend the mine that is the source of their fortune. One man has the power to threaten their fortune, Paul de Chabriall, brother to the beautiful Celeste and is ruthless enough to do anything to add Harry and Fee’s mine to his growing acquisitions But while life is hard on the diggings for the thousands who flocked there during the summer of 1853, being ‘On Bendigo’ in the valley of the eagles was the height of romance, just to be there was to be the envy of the rest of the world.

203 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 22, 2012