Whether they believe in ghosts or not, Canberra author JJ Carpenter says every Australian seems to know a supernatural story.  

There’s something inherently ghostly and spiritual about Australia, she says, and even though she doesn’t know how to define a ghost, she is sure they are real.

“When I was a kid, it was absolutely terrifying, I would wake up in the middle of the night and there’d be someone sitting at the end of my bed, and I wouldn’t be able to move,” says JJ.

“You don’t think about them as ghosts when you’re a kid, it’s just something that’s sort of happening.”

This month JJ published her first book, a ghost story titled The Corner of Her Eye. 

This is not the first book, having started writing at the age of six, but she says it is the first to be published.

In the novel, Charlie White, a young professional woman from Sydney, suddenly develops a life-threatening allergy to peanuts. 

Charlie’s allergy is based on JJ’s own experience of developing a severe allergy to shellfish, which she says saw her have “many brushes with death”.

“What I always want to do, when this is happening, is run away and move to the country, so I wrote a story where the main character could do that,” she says.

JJ says she visits sites for research, as well as utilising libraries and archives, this way the stories are rooted in history.

The Corner of Her Eye is set on a sheep station homestead in rural NSW, inspired by several ruined, preserved and operating stations across Australia that JJ has visited. 

However, once Charlie moves into the 1920s cottage on this homestead, she quickly realises she is not alone.

The book then follows two timelines, present day and the 1920s-30s, says JJ, and delves into the idea of purgatory and spirits who are not ready to move on.

With the second book, which JJ says she is in the editing stage of, the focus shifts to the early 1800s, particularly convict labour in the construction of the Great North Road.

JJ is not announcing the total number of books in the series yet, but says she is hoping to have the third one written by the end of the year.  

“Each book has its own sort of mini story inside; they’re looking at different parts of our history, but they all are linked,” she says. 

“It’s all planned out. There’s no fumbling in the dark with this series.” 

JJ says she has come to realise how overlooked our history is, and how much history has been lost to poor record keeping, giving the example of the Waterfall Sanitorium in NSW, which was the first purpose-built centre for tuberculosis patients. 

“When they changed hands they lost all of their handwritten records, so we don’t even know everyone who died there,” says JJ. 

“I get into a rabbit hole, I just get really excited about, what was it like for people living back in those times? And, how can I bring some of the history out? But it is obviously historical fiction, so I get that creative licence to fill some of the gaps.”

JJ says she had always wanted to write and publish a novel of her own, but it wasn’t until a difficult year in 2023, where she lost some people close to her, that she decided to bite the bullet and go on long-service leave, and commit to writing full-time. 

“It just kind of made me reassess what’s important to me in life and, life is so short,” she says.

“I do love my day job, but writing, it’s the passion, it’s the thing that has been consistent through my whole life… so no more waiting.”

JJ says although she wrote the first draft in just six weeks, it has been a long process of research, writing, editing and marketing, as she created her own publishing house to release the novel through. 

“You need the conviction to just jump into it, don’t wait for someone else to tell you to do it, because if you get pushed into it, you won’t have the conviction to see it through,” she says.

“It’s gonna be hard, it’s gonna be tough, but if it’s something that you love, that’s the reward.

“If you still like your book by the time that you hit publish, you should be okay.”

Order the book at  jjcarpenterauthor.com. A Kindle version is available on amazon.com.au.