Madame Midas

Gold changes everything. In this fierce Victorian melodrama set during Australia's gold-rush era, two escaped convicts wash ashore on a desolate coastline, their French prison behind them and fortune ahead. But the real drama belongs to Mrs. Villiers, a woman who clawed her way from a disastrous marriage to become a respected gold mine owner, and who now faces her past's most dangerous reckoning. Her estranged husband has returned, hungry for the power and wealth she built without him. As fortunes rise and fall, Hume paints a vivid portrait of a society where gold unlocks doors and destroys lives. The novel pulses with tension: cunning Frenchmen, dangerous secrets, and a woman who refuses to be owned. It's a tale of ambition unchecked, betrayal's bite, and one woman's furious determination to keep what she's earned. For readers who love Victorian sensation novels, Australian colonial literature, and stories of women who refuse to surrender.