The Lotus and the Dragon: A Historical Adventure (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798895675274)

Jack Crowe knows the price of killing-and the frontier always collects its debts.

After serving ten hard years for shooting two bushrangers, Jack earns his freedom the only way the outback allows: sweat, silence, and survival. He builds a freight business across the dangerous country of 1880s New South Wales, believing the past is finally behind him-until a former policeman turned bushranger wipes out everyone Jack once worked beside.

Revenge sets him moving, but love complicates the hunt. First comes Clara Watson and the promise of a respectable life, torn away by prison bars and betrayal. Then, on the goldfields, Jack meets An Ni-a woman hardened by violence, captivity, and a world that treats her as property. As riots erupt and Chinese miners vanish, Jack is dragged into a brutal trade where men are enslaved and women are sold.

The frontier offers no mercy. Every choice tightens the noose. And if Jack wants justice-and the woman he loves-he'll have to fight through chains, blood, and the one truth he can't escape:

Some men survive the outback.

Others are claimed by it.