Silver Medal
Global Book Awards 2025
Historical Fiction category.
He thought a man’s worth
was measured in ships.
Until he lost everything.
PRAISE FOR SON OF HYDRA
High stakes action, sweeping landscapes and a spirited love story—Son of Hydra has it all. Ghikas emerges as the anti-authoritarian hero Australians love best.
—Kyra Geddes, author of The Story Thief.
Dark’s masterly portrayal of their companionship and brotherhood is rendered with such intimacy... that Hydra itself seems to pulse through their speech.
—Dean Kalimniou, poet, essayist, cultural commentator, columnist Neos Kosmos
Dark’s vivid prose, attentive characterisation and commitment to ethical storytelling combine to produce a work that honours the complexity of the past without succumbing to nostalgia or triumphal mythmaking.
— Dean Kalimniou, poet, essayist, cultural commentator, columnist Neos Kosmos
A transportive and beautifully written story that needed to be told.
—Yvette Manessis Corporon, US Emmy award-winning and international bestselling author of Daughter of Ruins
As cinematic as Master and Commander, as heartfelt as Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.
—Peter Barber, internationally awarded and bestselling author of The Parthenon Series.
Once you start reading Son of Hydra, you cannot put it down.
—Heraklis Kalogerakis, Vice Admiral Hellenic Navy (retd)
ABOUT SON OF HYDRA
Sydney, 1829.
Ghikas Voulgaris, proud and reckless son of a powerful Greek shipping family, is certain life will bend to his will. But when he and his friends attack a supply ship during the Greek War of Independence, everything shatters. His punishment is swift and public: transportation to the penal colony of New South Wales as a convicted pirate.
Stripped of his name, influence, and friends, Ghikas becomes nobody. He must bow to men who neither know nor care who he was. And Mary—a fierce Irish orphan who answers to no one—is everything he doesn’t want in a woman.
Ghikas believes he’ll serve his sentence and return to Hydra to reclaim his birthright. But the real battle—discovering who he is, where he belongs, and what makes a man—has only just begun
Click here for more on the research behind the story of Son of Hydra.
Gold Medal Global Book Awards 2025 Biographical—Traveler & Explorer
Part funny travel memoir,
part solo detective story,
pure joy.
ABOUT HYDRA IN WINTER
When the summer crowds leave, the magic begins. I arrive solo on the car-free island of Hydra to hunt down a family secret: the truth about my husband’s ancestor—a Greek pirate who became Australia’s first Greek convict.
Armed with an umbrella, a cashmere scarf, and zero Greek, I settle into a shipowner’s mansion on the harbour. To the clip-clop of donkeys on stone steps, I explore the island, dive into its archives, and let the warmth of Hydra’s locals turn my urgent quest into a slow-travel adventure—and the beginning of my passion to write the pirate’s story.
For readers who enjoy Greek island escapes, humorous travel memoirs, solo adventures, and true stories full of curiosity, serendipity, and joie de vivre.
Hydra in Winter is one hell of an entertaining read.
—Samuel Bernard, The Weekend Australian Review
Reading Hydra in Winter is like drinking a bottomless glass of champagne—bubbly, refreshing, and bound to make you laugh.
—Kyra Geddes, author of The Story Thief
A thoroughly delightful and entertaining read, with more substance than a light-hearted holiday book.
—Barbie Robinson, Living Arts Canberra
Hydra in Winter is a real page-turner.
—Dean Kalimniou, poet, essayist, cultural commentator, columnist Neos Kosmos
ABOUT ME
After a lifetime raising cattle on Queensland’s Granite Belt, my husband and I swapped the bush for the Sunshine Coast of Queensland Australia. I’m an award-winning Australian author who travels as often as she can and enjoys iPhone photography. I’m a member of the ALLWRiTE Club and Writers on the Coast Noosa—a generous community of writers whose work and thinking continually stretches my own.
My books include Hydra in Winter (2024), awarded a Gold Medal at the Global Book Awards 2025 (Biographical—Traveler & Explorer), about my trip to the Greek island of Hydra to uncover my husband’s ancestor, Ghikas Voulgaris—Australia’s first Greek convict pioneer. And Son of Hydra (2025), awarded a Silver Medal at the Global Book Awards 2025 (Historical Fiction), inspired by his extraordinary life. Next will come Daughter of Cork, the story of his Irish wife, along with another exciting new narrative non-fiction. My short fiction appears in anthologies.
If you’d like to keep in touch—and maybe join me on the next adventure—I’d love you to subscribe to the readers’ group on my website.
My ultimate mission is the pursuit of the perfect cream bun.
FUTURE DREAMING
Daughter of Cork
When it comes out in 2026, Daughter of Cork will tell the other half of the story — Mary Lyons’ half.
Mary arrives in New South Wales fierce, hopeful, and determined to build a life on her own terms.
Ghikas Voulgaris is the last complication she wants.
Daughter of Cork will be the story of a woman shaped by hardship, driven by hope, and caught between independence and a love that changes everything.
