It’s 1978 and Johanna loves her adventurous new husband, Kurt, with all of her young, naive heart. She'll follow him anywhere—even far from their home in Germany to a small mining town deep in the Australian bush. Traveling across rocky seas, Kurt begins to unravel, revealing his true, disturbing personality.
Alone and isolated from friends and family, Johanna struggles to navigate her husband's increasingly violent temper and manipulative behavior. Exploited to help him dig in the mines for the legendary black opal, Johanna faces a miserable life, filled with fear and abuse. Her fate seems sealed—unless she kills him first.
Helga Zeiner is a German born Canadian author. She left her home town Augsburg at age eighteen to explore the world. In the following fourteen years she has lived and worked in Australia and Asia, writing in her spare time.
Several of her thrilling novels have been on the Amazon bestseller list and enjoy an enthusiastic fan base.
She now lives with her husband on a country estate in the wilderness of British Columbia, devoting all her time to writing.
I was asked to name four writers who influenced me most. When I was a child, my father, an avid reader, gave me the collected works of Karl May, the beloved German writer of travel adventure novels. I began with ‘Winnetou’, and was immediately hooked on the joy of immersing myself into a story. As a teenager, I discovered Stephen King, reading ‘Carrie’ first, an experience which sparked my love for dark tales of misunderstood youth, strange phenomena and broken spirits. This path was further explored by reading a gazillion psychological novels. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn comes to mind, a book I must have read three times already. And final, the crowning number one of great authors who inspire me is Chris Bohjalian. Reading his novel Midwives made me shiver with desire to reach his level of what I call word-mastery.
Of course, there are many more writers worthy of mention, but those four always have a place in my heart. Thinking about the seemingly rather odd mix now (a long dead mind-adventurer, a very much alive master of mystery, an explorer of dark secrets, a literary artist) I realize the combination makes sense when I look at my own writing to date. Entertain, create suspense – and, do it well, that’s what writing is all about.
Book Excerpt
Mine Forever: A Survivor Psychological Thriller
Relief. He is there. He’ll be able to drive me back to Johanna. Damn Dieter. I placed my foot on the ladder and carefully made my way down, one step at a time. This damn thing is making a noise like a baby rattle. How old are those anchors that secure it to the earthen wall of the manhole anyway? Can’t be trusted. Going back up crossed my mind but then Kurt called again, reassuring me. “I really need a hand down here,” he yelled. The deeper I went, the narrower the space around me got, with the light from above fading fast. What am I doing climbing into this hellhole right into Satan’s maw? And there he was, standing at the last rung, holding the ladder for me, shining the lamp above his helmet right into my face.
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