Local author releases lighthouse mystery

A HISTORIC shipwreck, a Bass Strait island and a lighthouse provide the setting for Bendigo author Kaye Dobbie’s latest book.

A dual-timeline novel, The Keepers of the Lighthouse is set in 1882 and present day, with secrets of the past uncovered by an expedition team who face their own struggles with sabotage.

Dobbie has written bestselling works under several pseudonyms, often with themes of history and gold fields.

She said she has a love for the sea that stems from travels with her father when she was a child.

“I love lighthouses, I find them interesting and especially in Tasmania their so wild and isolated and really interesting places,” she said.

“When I was young, five or six, my father built a boat and we lived on that for a couple of years, I had that seafaring part of the story.

“I grew up in Drysdale on the Bellarine peninsula, my father built the boat and we sailed up the coast.

“We ended up at Yamba on the north coast of New South Wales and I went to school there. I worked in Brisbane for a couple of years and my parents moved back to Victoria to Dunolly.”

Dobbie eventually found employment in Bendigo and met her husband, all the while finding time to work on her passion of writing.

“It’s part of you,” she said. “When you’ve got that creative thing it’s hard to not do it. I’ve had time off where I haven’t worked, and I always start to really miss it. You have to do something.”

The author said while she hasn’t fully thought out her next novel, she is interested in writing mysteries and stories set in regional Australia.