Judas Island (Promise of Gold book one‪)‬

The Indians had tales of a lake of gold, and a race of women who lived there, who ate off gold, lived off gold, wore gold clothing, and a queen called Calafia who named her territory California…

The Gosling, a brig of questionable ownership, has a captain who is driven by the same quest for Conquistador gold that had once drawn Henry Morgan, pirate. But, if there were dark secrets below the decks of the Gosling, actress Harriet Gray has her own surprises for the ship’s company. It was no ordinary woman who had found her way from London to the eastern Pacific, and she has no ordinary part to play in the voyage of the Gosling towards the beckoning gold.

From the brooding cliffs of Judas Island to the exotic port of Valparaiso and the magnificent vista of San Francisco Bay, the Promise of Gold saga traces the adventures of a pirate captain, his unexpected passenger, and his freebooting crew in the early months of the Californian gold rush, when rugged men braved floods and fever to follow the call of the siren gold.