One Penny

Guppys owner Gary also writes novels and if you like Wilbur Smith or Bryce Courtenay then you may enjoy One Penny, a 400+ page novel. Available here in paperback.

One Penny Two boys find a penny in the dust of Scott’s Creek, a small country town in central Queensland. The public squabble over ownership of said coin causes their father, the local Blacksmith to mete out some rough punishment, but in his rage, he seriously harms the eldest boy, Lindsay, starting a chain reaction of events that change the lives of so many people. It is 1899, and Australia is recruiting soldiers to fight in South Africa, as the Boer have risen and threaten to undermine the British who hold great value upon the riches hidden in the earth of this war-torn country. Forced onto a ship and away from his family, Lindsay’s father finds that he is the only one with the knowledge of a plot to destroy many lives, but has no way to warn his fellow enlistees, and the fact that he is widely hated by most in his home town does not help him in his quest to bring down the man responsible. Follow Malachi Tanner and his sons Lindsay and Henry as the story takes them through war, survival, joy and tears over the span of almost 100 years, up to a modern investigation that still needs to know exactly what happened at the turn of the last century.