[Song of the River 01] • The Auction a Romance by Anna Erishkigal

A Novel of the Dreamtime...

Dumped at the altar and left without a home, Rosie Xalbadora takes a job as a governess at the edge of the Australian outback. There she meets Pippa Bristow, a sensitive child who copes with her parent's bitter divorce by escaping into a magical world of fairy queens and unicorns. Pippa's enigmatic father, Adam Bristow, is willing to endure whatever he must to keep his daughter safe from his manipulative oil heiress ex-wife.

Struggling to shield Pippa from her mother's games, Rosie must face the ghosts of her own painful past while fighting a growing attraction to her handsome, emotionally unavailable employer. But help comes in the form of an eccentric elderly neighbor, a welcoming Outback town, and two mysterious horsemen who visit Rosie's dreams. When Rosie and Pippa save a small, white pony from slaughter, their ill-timed compassion puts Adam's custody dispute, Pippa's fantasies, and Rosie's worst fears all up for bid in an epic showdown.

'The Auction' is a sweet, contemporary romance styled with the heart-wrenching, Gothic undertones of 'Jane Eyre' and just a hint of the supernatural. It weaves native Aboriginal Australian myth with the fate of horses, environmental degradation, and the question of what it takes to have a home.