Welcome to Joni’s Beautiful Books Page. Here we showcase novels by Joni Scott (Australia) Here you can see what she writes about and whether you are interested in her novels. You can sample the writing style by reading some of Joni’s short stories in the post Time for a little story.
And, of course, by reading Joni’s 80 posts on this site whisperingencouragement.com. All the books are on the usual online platforms like Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble etc as well as in bookstores somewhere in the world. Available as e book, paperback versions. The Last Hotel has also hardback and audiobook versions. But store owners can order them in if not in yours.
And don’t you just love the covers? All so different and each one is the door to a different world waiting to be explored by you.
A Quick Overview
Whispers Through Time was Joni’s first beautiful book or debut novel as it is called. It was rather accidental as Joni is a science/mathematics girl, so writing came as a surprise late in life. It happened on holidays and because her sister researched their family history. Read about this in her post about becoming an accidental author.
Once there, Joni started writing the sequel, Time Heal my Heart (almost published) but fate stepped in by way of a medical drama, namely CRPS. Again, life took an interesting detour, as it tends to do, leading to another beautiful book, The Last Hotel, set in France. Then Covid -19 disrupted plans as it did for all of us and the publication of the sequel to the first book got delayed so Joni wrote a fourth set in Australia and India. That is the light and romantic, colour-infused Colour Comes to Tangles. It is interesting what inspiration lies behind a novel.
What is ‘Whispers Through Time’ about?
This historical drama, part true, part fiction, is based on the lives of the author’s maternal grandparents, Walter and Winifred, mysterious lives spanning most of the twentieth century. Here is a trailer for it.
Encompassing the Boer Wars, the end of the Victorian age and the Titanic tragedy, the characters not only travel onward through these times but also to the colonial outposts of the British Empire.
As the first book of a trilogy, Whispers through Time, introduces the personalities, dreams and motivations of Winifred and her family. The mysteries that surround her life in the past intrigue her real-life grand-daughter, Heady, who tries to unravel them in the present day.
Why did young Winifred leave London alone on a ship to travel to Australia? Why especially in June 1912, just months after the Titanic tragedy?
Where did her brother, Oscar disappear to without a trace? And what happened to her beautiful younger sister, Francesca after her tragic love affair?
Time is an ever-present theme that waxes and wanes like a tide throughout lives.
Watch the short and sweet book trailer here.
What is ‘The Last Hotel’ about?
Set in a beautiful hideaway on the French Riviera, between the Alpes Maritimes and the shimmering blue Mediterranean, The Last Hotel is a heart-warming tale of love and loss and of finding joy in the simplest of pleasures.
It’s March 2020, and as flights are cancelled and hotels close in virus-stricken Europe, seven strangers meet by chance. Out of necessity they form a family in lockdown in the last hotel open on the French Riviera.
Young Kaz and Lou have lost their dream jobs in St. Tropez, and Will, a chef from Torquay, is similarly and suddenly unemployed. Jenny came for a holiday with her son, Sasha, but his ballet contract is suspended, and older Australians Maggie and Tim flee Italy. During their stay at the Last Hotel, the new guests meet interesting neighbours, Juliette and Henri, and Deborah, a single mother whose plan for a restful year in Provence is also disrupted.
This improbable gathering of old and young discovers that magic happens when you least expect it. Wars and pestilences can come with no warning out of a cloudless sky, but so too can love take you by surprise. If you believe in magic and serendipity, you will find it here in The Last Hotel.
The novel was inspired by the author’s real-life experience of lockdown in 2020.
Now also available as an audiobook on many platforms.
What is ‘Colour Comes to Tangles’ about?
Tangles is a hair salon on Buderim Mountain, Queensland, Australia and Tanya, the owner and sole hairdresser. With an ex stalking her and a girlfriend missing, Tanya considers her life complicated enough. But then colour comes to Tangles in the form of exotic Vidisha, a colour therapist who takes tenancy upstairs. Tanya seeks therapy and becomes entangled in Vidisha’s world. Tanya ’s life will never be the same again. It spirals out of control in a swirl of colour.
From tropical Queensland, the story shifts to rural Australia then to colourful India. Tanya and her friend, Josie not only encounter conflict but face decisions that alter their lives forever. Accompanied by a cast of zany characters and small animals, Colour comes to Tangles is a contemporary mystery romance infused with insights into modern marriage and its issues. A book for any woman who has ever wanted to escape.
Stay tuned for the captivating sequel to Whispers Through Time, titled, Time, Heal my Heart, a poignant story set in World War One. Based on a true story. Due out soon…
Time, Heal my Heart
in 1914 young husbands and sons set off in high spirits for the grand adventure of war, a war promised to be over by Christmas. Little do they or their loved ones realize that four long years of horror lay ahead.
World War One shatters the peaceful lives of newly wed Australian immigrants, Walter and Winifred. Their families lie over the ocean in England, their brothers fight on the battlefields of Europe. Torn by loyalties, they set off on a perilous sea journey during wartime, shortly after the sinking of the Lusitania by German U boats.
But their neighbor, Lisbette, a girl with a mysterious past, must stay to live in anguish in Australia unable to return to her native France.
The scene shifts from Australia to Gallipoli and the battlefields of Flanders, culminating at the mystical Mont-Saint-Michel off the Normandy coast. Here, Effie, one of many tiny victims of the war, finds refuge in the centuries old monastery.
It is all a matter of time.
Will authorities find Effie’s parents at war’s end? How long can Winifred’s brother, Gustave survive the trenches? And can returning soldiers escape the deadly grip of the Spanish Flu?
Whether read as a stand-alone novel or sequel to Whispers through Time, this drama will tear at your heart strings, especially as it is based on a true story.
More beautiful books to come
Also, later this year Joni and Wendy will be collating their helpful and informative posts into beautiful non-fiction books and courses. Then they can truly whisper encouragement to you all.
Photo Source. Collage of Book covers
