Nicole Alexander Books In Order

Publication Order of Gordon Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Nicole Alexander is an Australian author of historical fiction books. She was born and spent her childhood in the northwest plains of New South Wales, Australia. Nicole was first homeschooled before joining a local primary school for two years and later attending a boarding school in Sydney. She earned a bachelor’s in Arts from the University of New England. Her novels, travel, poetry, genealogy, and creative writing articles have been published in Singapore, Australia, America, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, Canada, and New Zealand. She is the best-selling author of more than ten books, including A Changing Land, The Bark Cutters, Absolution Creek, The Great Plains, Sunset Ridge, Wild Lands, Stone Country, The Cedar Tree, River Run, An Uncommon Woman, and The Last Station (released March 2022). Nicole’s novel The Bark Cutters, the first book in the Gordon series, was shortlisted for the 2011 Australian Book Industry Award.

The Bark Cutters introduces Sarah Gordon, born and raised as a farm girl. Living in Wangallon Homestead, her family cattle and sheep station in Northwest Wales, is tough, but growing up in the area in the 1980’s Sarah calls it home and doesn’t worry much about the future. Her elder brother Cameron is destined to inherit her grandfather Angus Gordon as the traditions require. Angus inherited his father’s arrogance and determination and did not see his son (Sarah’s father) as a worthy inheritor. But Angus is a busybody, he hires Anthony as a jackaroo and later promotes him as a station manager, but deep down, he intends him to marry Sarah and inherit the family wealth.

But then tragedy comes knocking, Cameron dies when horse riding, and Sarah discovers he was only half-brother. It’s revealed that her mother had an affair with a wool grader, but that doesn’t change the love she had for Cameron, but then her mother hates her, and it seems that her grandfather has doubts about her inheriting the Wangallon. But then Angus is focused on ensuring he passes the station to Gordon. After completing high school, Sarah leaves her rural home and heads to Sydney, where she begins a new life as a photographer and soon meets Jeremy, an accountant who shows her a distinct way of life. But then, her grandfather recalls Sarah back home, even after her parent relocated to Gold Coast. The only people managing the Wangallon are just Angus and Anthony. Angus shares his plans for Sarah, to inherit the station, but on one condition, to move back to Wangallon and marry Anthony. But this dictatorial approach only pushes her further, and Sarah is sure that Anthony knows it all and does not truth her affection for him or his to hers. She honestly doesn’t know her heart and resists the idea of moving back to the station. It will take more than a command from the grandfather to clear up the doubt and anguish in Sarah’s heart.
In parallel with Sarah’s narrative, which unfolds between 1982 and 1987, is the history of Wangallon Farm, the tale of her great-grandfather, Hamish Gordon. After leaving Scotland
in outrage in 1854 with his little brother Charlie in tow, he arrives in the gold mines of Victoria, striving to become wealthy. After his brother’s death, Hamish devises a new strategy: stealing a large number of livestock (a common occurrence), starting his own property, and becoming a wealthy landowner. His plan entails getting married to Rose, a young damsel from the adjacent New South Wales town, but their relationship is cold and hostile, and they never agree. Rose is affected by the hardships of life in remote Australia in the 1850s, and Hamish does have his sight on a woman he once saw in Sydney.

It is Rose’s story just as much as it’s Hamish’s and Sarah’s, a narrative about the profound relationships formed between people and the unique Australian landscape, molded by humans but never mastered. It is a tale of love and dedication, kinship, identity, and following one’s emotions. A great deal is going on in this novel, which focuses on familial relationships, past failures, and lost love. Sue, Sarah’s grouchy mother, has considerable similarities with Rose, but other than that, the characters are fairly realistic and authentic.
In Cedar Tree, Nicole Alexander introduces the readers to the O’Riain clan as we meet Stella, a woman suffocating in the confines of her home in the Strzelecki Desert. She makes a run for it, and since it’s the 1940s, few options are available for her as a woman on the run. She hesitantly accepts assistance from her brother-in-law Harry, which sees her move from the troubled life in the desert to Richmond Valley. While on her brothers-in-law’s sugar cane farm, Stella tries to unlock the secrets her husband’s family is hiding. But then she is thwarted by their silence and great opposition.

Moving alongside Stella’s story is the story of two Irish cousins, Sean and Brandon O’Riain. The two arrive in Australia from Ireland, escaping political wars, religious persecution and criminal activity. They start a new life for themselves in Richmond’s Valley, a place filled with cedar trees. The two cousins work tirelessly as cedar cutters; one is thankful for the new life in a new country, while the other will struggle to understand the past truly. Nicole Alexander’s The Cedar Tree novel showcases how powerful decisions made by past generations can be and how they, directly and indirectly, affect the descendants of the future.

The author does live up to her reputation as one of the most famous Australian authors. She was considered the “heart of Australian storytelling” She carefully crafted a successful writing career in the Australian historical fiction genre right from the time her debut novel was published. Nicole divides her books through different viewpoints, locations, and periods. The story switches from Ireland’s green landscape to the Australian desert’s dry landscape. The pictures pique landscape of Richmond Valley and are considered the epitome of the Australian cedar tree business.

Overall, The Cedar Tree is a family saga full of secrets, strained relationships and fractions to overcome. Nicole Alexander has beautifully crafted moments of love, despair and pure heartbreak. She also uses this story to highlight religious tensions, and political issues, showcase how some people disrespect other cultures, and issues of land ownership constraints.