Fake or Fortune

AUTHORS NOTE
Most good stories come easily for authors
who understand, fi rst hand, the fragility of
values when pastoral holdings are overburdened
with debt, or when the provenance of fi ne art
is in question. So it is, also, when a farming
woman is at her wits end, burdened with
debt, abuse and the desperation to be loved.


Born in the Australian outback,
Peter Sharp spent his early working years
as a talented livestock auctioneer. Some years
later, a far cry from the dust and fl ies of country
livestock saleyards, he makes a name for himself as an outstanding
auctioneer and valuer of fi ne art in London.


In 1965, when Sharp arrives at the prestigious out-back
pastoral holding known as Morgan Plains, he is ready to value a
small art collection. Its possible that all the paintings are fakes, but
then again, maybe they are worth a fortune.


However, there are some things he is not ready for and
Malcolm Morgan is one of them. Quite by accident the background
to this arrogant and enigmatic man lies with the young farming
woman sitting next to Sharp at Morgans dinner table that
fi rst night.


Morgan Plains covers an area 13% the size of Sicily, but
there are closer ties to Sicily than that, as Sharp will soon fi nd
out. His long time friend and mentor, Austin Yates unknowingly
becomes the lynch-pin as this intriguing story unfolds.


Quite apart from the intrigue surrounding the Morgan
Collection, Fake or Fortune is a powerful love story; one that would
never have happened had it not been for this chance assignment out
on the vast black-soil plains of New South Wales.


Ten years and several countries later Peter Sharp is more
involved than ever with the Morgan Collection, and the love of this
truly extraordinary country woman.