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Deborah O'Brien kindly had me as a guest over on her blog and I wanted to share her delightful review and Q and A ... so today I am in my chair being interviewed by Deborah!
Q&A with Annie Seaton Author of 'Kakadu Sunset' Annie Seaton is the author of 'Kakadu Sunset', a captivating new novel from Pan Macmillan Australia. She is also an award-winning e-book author. I’m delighted to have the chance to chat with Annie about her writing career. Annie, you’ve had a varied and respected career as an educator. What inspired you to begin writing fiction? Deborah, the desire to write has always been a part of me. I remember walking into a public library in Brisbane with my mother when I was four years old and my love affair with the written word began. Reading became my favourite activity from that day on but although my initial career was in librarianship, the desire to write was always there, however the opportunity to write was delayed by study, career, marriage and family. Kakadu National Park is more than a mere backdrop for your first full-length novel – it’s almost a character in its own right. Would you agree? Absolutely! Kakadu is not just a geographical location. Although the physical landscape of the park is majestic, much of its beauty comes from the spiritual sense that surrounds you as you walk through the park. The silence is amazing. Aboriginal people have occupied the Kakadu area continuously for at least 40,000 years and the park is renowned for the richness of its Aboriginal cultural sites. Walking through those sacred places had a profound effect on me. Ubirr Rock and Jim Jim Falls are unforgettable. Ellie Porter, your female protagonist, is an intrepid helicopter pilot. The scenes in the helicopter (which would have been a nightmare for me to write as I’m mechanically challenged) are so deftly written that I’d think the author was a pilot herself! How did you go about researching Ellie’s job? That’s a great question. Ellie’s profession just happened; it wasn’t even something I had consciously planned. I had never been in a helicopter because I don’t like heights or small planes, let alone helicopters! So as all good researchers do, I went hands on researching and took a helicopter training flight. It was absolutely awesome and I was much better placed to convey the sense of piloting a ‘bird’ because I had done it. Kakadu Sunset is the first book in the Porter Sisters Series? Can you tell us a little bit about this trilogy? And will the next two novels weave together romantic and suspense elements in the same way as this one? Book Two, 'Daintree Sunrise' is complete and with my editor now. I won’t give away any clues, but again, it weaves together suspense and romance, and some eco-environment issues. I am currently researching and writing Book Three, 'Kimberley Moonlight' and loving it. It is shaping up to be my favourite as this one has a real combination of environment, cultural issues, suspense and a foray overseas as well as being set in the East Kimberley. I love writing strong female leads, and Drusilla in Book Three is a very strong and feisty character. Your travels provide inspiration for your stories. Do you write while you’re on the road, or do you wait until you’re back home behind your desk? The story simmers away in my mind as we travel, and I jot down ideas. It takes a few weeks for the threads to join together in my head and then I sit down and write very quickly when it has all come together and I am back at my desk. Which writers have most influenced your own writing? I have very eclectic taste in my choice of reading, so I had to think about this answer. Strangely enough, it is historical writers such as Sharon Penman, Diana Gabaldon and Anya Seton who shaped my writing. The ability to let the reader feel with a character is not genre specific, and I always wanted to be able to make a reader become emotionally entangled with the characters as I reading those particular authors. And finally, what are your top three tips for aspiring novelists? Persevere. Have determination, and keep the faith in yourself. Develop your own voice, follow your heart and stay with what you believe. Thanks for having me visit, Deborah. It’s been a pleasure, Annie. You can read my review of ‘Kakadu Sunset’ here. And visit Annie's website here. REVIEW If you were to make a judgment about this novel based on a glance at the young woman on the cover, dressed in skimpy shorts and standing beside a lagoon, glowing orange in the dying light, you might assume Annie Seaton's ‘Kakadu Sunset’ is a typical romance novel. But you’d be wrong. There’s far more to this book than meets the eye. As well as its strong romantic elements, it also happens to be a riveting enviro-thriller with some very serious issues simmering under the surface. Ellie Porter is an intrepid helicopter pilot, who takes tourists on scenic flights over Kakadu National Park. Having grown up on a mango farm adjoining the Park, Ellie is passionate about the area and its preservation. One day, when she is flying over the old property, she notices extensive man-made scars in the earth and resolves to discover exactly what is going on. Meanwhile, Ellie finds herself with an attractive new colleague by the name of Kane McLaren, who happens to be the stepson of the current owner of her family home. Can he be trusted to help in her search for the truth, or is he in cahoots with those who are defacing the landscape? The main characters are well drawn. Ellie is a smart, feisty, capable woman in a job that is traditionally male. Kane is also interesting, as much for his ‘muscled arms and tight abs’, as for the secrets lurking in his recent past. This book is a real page-turner, and I love the way the author has made the crocodile a leitmotif, weaving its way through the story in both a physical and a metaphorical sense. Annie Seaton’s prose is lucid and polished, and her descriptions of the Kakadu landscape vivid and lyrical. I look forward to the other books in her planned trilogy. Read more in myinterview with Annie Seaton. And by the way, all you film producers out there, here’s a great commercial screenplay in the making. IN A NUTSHELL: With its strong characters, evocative prose and mix of romance and suspense, Annie Seaton’s ‘Kakadu Sunset’ will not only transport you to one of the most magnificent landscapes on earth but also keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end. 'Kakadu Sunset' is published by Macmillan Australia and is now available at all good bookshops and online. Deborah O’Brien 18 January 2016
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Buy Links: Amazon US Amazon Au iBooks Barnes & Noble - Smashwords - Today I’m honoured to have four special guests on the launch day of Second Chance Cafe. Three are known to me and I love their stories, and Abbie is a new- to-me author and I’m looking forward to reading her story and getting to know her. So without further ado, I present the authors of Second Chance Cafe...happy launch day! Who are these coffee loving writers? Almost two years ago, four SE Queensland authors met face-to-face for the first time and ‘clicked’. So well that the Bathing Beauties Publishing Group was formed and we released our first free Christmas anthology, A Season to Remember, in 2014. This year, we take great pleasure in offering four short stories of love and coffee in Second Chance Café. Second chances are, by virtue of missing out the first time around, sweet and precious. With this premise in mind, the authors of Second Chance Café sipped their lattes and said: Why not write about those sweet moments and set these stories in a café? Annie asked us to share where our inspiration came from. The initial idea was second chances, set in a café. What each of us did with that displays the breadth of possibilities and variety of approaches we took. Abbie Jackson is a young mum of four toddlers, runs her own business, and in her spare time (that’s a joke), she writes novels and enjoys cooking and baking. Shannon’s Legacy – Abbie Jackson After discussing the concept of Second Chance Cafe over lunch one day, I drove home pondering what a true second chance would be to me and the only thing I could think about was my children. My overwhelming urge to protect them from anything and everything was in overdrive during that period of my life and so, that part of my personality was the basis of my gutsy main character, Shannon. The idea of Shannon's illness came from a friend of mine, whom I watched from afar battle against the medical odds and win. I tried not to, but the character of Anderson was based on a young version of my son. He was, and is, the sweetest boy I've ever met. Then there's quirky Dr Maxwell Dent. Every time I picture Dr Dent in my mind, I see a dear old colleague of mine, Dr Smith and a smile comes to my face. And finally, the character of Matt is a strange blend of my brother, and my friend, Joe. Once I had these characters firmly in my mind, the story really wrote itself. I knew Shannon and her disease, and I knew how the story would end. From there, my characters did all the rest for me. Abbie lives in South-East Queensland and has travelled extensively around the world prior to having her family. She loves writing across multiple genres including fantasy, sci-fi, romance, crime and children’s stories. Email: abbiejacksonauthor@gmail.com Website: www.abbiejackson.net Facebook: www.facebook.com/AbbieJacksonAuthor Elizabeth Ellen Carter’s debut novel, Moonstone Obsession, was published in 2013 by Etopia Press. Earlier that year, the Regency adventure romance had been shortlisted in the Romance Writers of Australia Emerald Awards for Best Unpublished Manuscript. September Harvest – Elizabeth Ellen Carter The inspiration for September Harvest came from a couple of different places. I started thinking about a few of books I’d read over the past couple of years – The Go-Between by LP Hartley, Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee and the Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. They were beautifully expressed pastoral stories set in England in the latter part of the 19th century – filled with luscious descriptions of the landscape and the hard life of the rural working class. Those stories also reminded me of a film I saw in the 1990s called A Summer Story, about an ill-fated, cross-class love affair. When the subject for this year’s anthology came up – second chances and coffee – the theme for September Harvest came to mind. I tend to write historical action romances and I wanted to try something different this time, one which focused on the burgeoning love and the journey to adulthood of Tilly, a young woman whose eyes have been opened to the wide world outside of her small village in Kent and whose future lies in the hands of one of two men – Andrew, the smart, aspiring teacher, and Noah, the softly spoken farmer. The author lives in Australia with her husband and two cats. A former newspaper journalist, she ran an award-winning PR agency for 12 years. Web: http://eecarter.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethEllenCarter Twitter: https://twitter.com/EECarterAuthor Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/eecarterauthor/ Buy Moonstone Conspiracy here: Etopia Press Bookstore Amazon Barnes and Noble iBookstore Kobo Google Play All Romance Ebooks Scribd Noelle Clark is an Australian author of contemporary romance novels, rural romance, and historical fiction. Her books weave romance, intrigue, and adventure into colourful and interesting settings. They feature characters who deal with love and loss; and who experience the often difficult facets of life, such as forgiveness and redemption. Noelle lives close to the sea in sunny Queensland, Australia, and shares her home with one cat and two dogs. She has two grown up children and four very small grandchildren. When Noelle's not writing and travelling, she procrastinates a lot thinking about travel, and perfecting ways to avoid housework. Inspiration for ‘Encore’ – Noelle Clark When the other authors in the anthology and I agreed on the theme for this year’s anthology – Second Chance Café – I had an immediate idea for my story. Second chances, thankfully, come around pretty often, especially in love and relationships. Often, we don’t make use of these opportunities. Many times we have already moved on, begun a new phase in our lives, or were bruised so badly the first time around that although a second chance sounds on the surface to be a good thing, it can often generate a renewed fear of being hurt. The second, and subsequent, chances disappear into the ether. Then I began to wonder at the timing of things. What if our second chance came a day, a month, maybe even a minute, after the first one that somehow didn’t work out? Or what if there was a long, protracted wait for that elusive second chance to turn up? Enter Louisa Frank, one-time fêted actor who won acclaim as the leading lady in plays and musicals performed in the cafés and bars in the backstreets of Hell’s Kitchen, a colourful neighbourhood off-Broadway. Way off. Louisa has the patience of a saint, and an unwavering certainty that her second chance is only one Saturday night away. Other books by Noelle Clark Let Angels Fly Rosamanti Honor’s Debt – Book 1 Robinhill Farm Series Honor’s Promise – Book 2 Robinhill Farm Series Honor’s Legacy – Book 3 Robinhill Farm Series Contact Noelle Clark www.noelleclark.net https://www.facebook.com/NoelleClark.Author And last but not least, Susanne Bellamy. Born and raised in Toowoomba, Susanne Bellamy is an Australian author of contemporary and suspense romances set in exciting and often exotic locations, and rural romance set in Australia. She adores travelwith her husband, both at home and overseas, and weaves stories around the settings and people she encounters. Her heroes have to be pretty special to live up to her real life hero. He saved her life then married her. The Wish List – Susanne Bellamy Some days, inspiration arrives like a thunderstorm, sweeping in from the south and raining ideas and story snippets. And sometimes I chase it down, spilling gallons of sweat and tears in pursuit of an idea that doesn’t sound silly. ‘The Wish List’ slipped into mind on a wash of tears in the wake of the death of our beautiful 12 year-old German Shepherd, Anna, in June this year. Her death hit hard and my original opening scene was more my need to bring some sense to her sudden and unexpected passing. In part, I was also mourning the loss of our children’s pet and the last connection to their childhood. Burying our Anna closed a sweet and wonderful chapter in our lives. I’ve never set a story in my hometown before but somehow, this didn’t feel right anywhere else. Welcome to Toowoomba, the Garden City at the top of the Range and home of the Carnival of Flowers, Queen’s Park, and “Puppy”, mascot of the Scots Pipe Thistle Band. We love our dogs! And just in case you’re wondering, we recently welcomed another very boisterous puppy into our lives. Meet Freya! Susanne is a member of the RWA and was a finalist in their 2011 Emerald Award. She placed third in the 2015 Pan Macmillan short story competition with Chez Romeo. Mentoring aspiring writers, and working as a freelance editor keeps her off the street! She loves connecting with readers and fellow writers. You can find her at: https://www.facebook.com/susanne.bellamy.7 https://twitter.com/SusanneBellamy http://www.susannebellamy.com/ http://www.pinterest.com/susannebellamy/ https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/6869630.Susanne_Bellamy I am delighted to have Barbara Hannay in my chair today. Her latest book, The Secret Years is a wonderful story that explores love past and present, and the ties that bind us to our past. The sweeping settings in England, and North Queensland were beautifully written. The characterisation was cleverly executed, and the reader sympathised with and understood the motivations of the characters. One of my favourite reads for 2015! Welcome Barbara... This month marks seventy years since the end of World War 2. For me, it's appropriate timing for the release of THE SECRET YEARS, as the book has strong links between a veteran of World War 2 and a young Australian female soldier returning from active duty in Afghanistan. These characters, Harry Kemp and his granddaughter Lucy, were partly inspired by the memory of my late Uncle Ralph, who served in Tobruk and at Kokoda in World War 2, and by my years living in the garrison city of Townsville. Mind you, THE SECRET YEARS is not really a book about war, although all of its characters over three generations are deeply affected by either their own war service or the impact it has had on the people they love. The story is mostly about romance and about the complexities of family life in a contemporary Australian setting, as well as family secrets linking in earlier generations. Harry is a retired and aging cattleman with a vast property in the remote Gulf Country who, like many veterans from his era, is strangely silent about his war experiences, even with his closest family members. Meanwhile, Lucy is a Townsville based career soldier, who has has risen through the ranks and has only recently returned from active duty in Afghanistan. The focus of the story is not on her experiences in a war zone, however, but on the issues she faces in adapting to civilian life and the secrets she starts to uncover about her family history. I had to do more historical research for THE SECRET YEARS than for most of my previous books, but the research enabled me to develop another important character, George (or more correctly, the Honourable Georgina Lenton) a wealthy debutante, who finds herself firstly, in the middle of the London blitz, and then in an even more terrifying situation where she's struggling for survival in the jungles of New Britain after the bombing of Rabaul. So yes, war is a feature of this novel, but I look at this mostly from a feminine perspective. I wanted to tell a modern Australian story which also paid tribute to the heroism of that bygone era. But first and last, I am a romance writer and it's romance – three romances in fact – that lie at the heart of this novel. I hope you enjoy it. The Secret Years is available from Penguin Random House at https://www.penguin.com.au/products/9780143799733/secret-years
I had the privilege of reading Claire Varley's début novel as an advance reader and wow... what a debut! Claire is a Melbourne native who has drawn extensively on her experiences working in community development in the Solomon Islands, her travels to China and Greece, as well as her own Greek-Cypriot heritage. The story of Alison and Oliver will resonate with every reader who has ever experienced the doubts that fill you when you fall in love. Insightful, poignant, romantic and incredibly funny, this story explores identity, relationships, family, culture and the art of writing through the lens of two twenty somethings in love. Throw in the mix of an unfamiliar country, post colonial Solomon Islands, and a range of different characters and you have a tapestry of life woven over snippets-the background and thoughts- of the people they meet as they live in the Solomon Islands for the year that Oliver is writing his second novel. Claire Varley's premise is that life is about our intersections with billions of different characters as we journey from birth to death. Her writing is fresh, quirky and wonderful and I look forward to more stories from her. I asked Claire how she researches such wonderful characters...and did she draw from personal experience. The Bit in Between by Claire Varley, Macmillan Australia, RRP $29.99 Welcome Claire Varley to my chair... Researching characters is very important to me, particularly as I often write about cultures that are not my own. There is an incredible responsibility that comes with writing others’ cultures, particularly, as is the case in The Bit In Between, when there is an extensive history of oppressive colonialism and ‘speaking for’ that culture or people. I've set the tone of this response very high by bringing post-colonialism into my opening sentences but what’s a bit of critical theory between friends? My approach to researching characters is a happy balance between ye olde book-based research, lived experience and directly asking people questions. I travel a lot and my day job is in the community sector, which means I get to interact with people from all walks of life every day. It helps to develop a bank of knowledge about the motivations, fears and priorities of others.The more I develop as a writer the more responsibility I feel towards my characters. I’m so conscious of the diversity of my characters because we still don’t live in a world where our beautiful diversity is reflected in our literature. We’re moving towards this but there’s still so much tokenism and stereotyping. Living in the Solomon Islands for two years had a profound impact on me in this regard – my colleague had a baby and whilst back in Australia visiting family I tried to find picture books to take back to her and struggled to find any stories about little girls who looked like her. I find it hugely upsetting that there are children, teenagers and adults who cannot find literary characters that reflect them and their experiences. Every character I create is a mix of bits of myself and people I know or have met or have imagined, but not in any real identifiable way. Basically, everyone is a Frankenstein’s monster of personal experience combined with a hefty dose of creative ‘what if?!’ and plastered together with little savoured morsels of overhearing or imagining. It’s not so much a case of any one character being any one person, more like a case of anyone is everyone and no one. Someone once told me that they thought my characters were often hyper-real, but all the examples they gave were things that had actually happened so I suspect we’re all much more caricature than we imagine. Also available on Bootopia: http://www.booktopia.com.au/the-bit-in-between-claire-varley/prod9781743535608.html Claire Varley grew up on the Bellarine Peninsula and lives in Melbourne. She has sold blueberries, worked in a haunted cinema, won an encouragement award for being terrible at telemarketing, taught English in rural China and co-ordinated community development projects in remote Solomon Islands Fiona is a rural midwife and international bestselling novelist of over two million books in twelve languages. She has dedicated this novel to the Royal Flying Doctor Service – their incredible flight nurses, flying doctors and outreach clinic care providers; the control room coordinators, the mechanics and the pilots who get them there safely; all those who raise funds to help support this incredible service.
Fiona travelled to Broken Hill to research The Homestead Girls, which focuses on a sheep station in drought, medical emergencies in the outback, and a beautiful but desolate landscape where five women become a family and where ordinary women are doing extraordinary things. Welcome to my chair, Fiona! I know you travel a lot for your research. Can you tell my lovely blog readers:What is your favourite place out of all your travels and was there a book that came from it?If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be and why? I love being Australian – that would never change.The area where I live in Australia, the climate, the river, the valley, the sea and even the sunset on the mountains in the distance, so I don’t want my base to change. This will always be my home. And my husband is here to stay. J But if I could have a holiday house in another country – we are dreaming here, right? I love lots of places; especially Scotland and England, but my favourite place to escape would be a little apartment in an Italian village. Learn the language. Learn to cook. Don’t laugh. I’d love to learn to cook. Andwe could travel all around Italy from there on day trips and overnighters. Just love Italy. Imagine knowing you were going to spend a couple of months a year there just to write and relax and sightsee. It’s the art and the history and the cities, I love, too:Da Vinci, The Medici’s, Florence, Venice… I could rave on all day. As for have I written a book there? I’ve set scenes in Italy, but usually they are travelling through, like I do. My two Cruise Ship books, The Orient Express book, writing about having a baby in an Italian hospital in Lyrebird Lake. I’ve never set a whole book in Italy (like you have :) ) but could if someone would lend me a little apartment in a village. The strength of female relationships came through strongly in The Homestead Girls. Where and how did you research that? Female relationships are incredibly different from male relationships aren’t they! I had a fabulous relationship with my mum, though I didn’t really understand her until I left my teens and had my own kids and pulled my head out of my bottom, but she was everything you could want in a mum, and she was such a giver. Women are! Then I’ve worked with incredibly passionate midwives in my work, amazing women birthing, and the sisterhood of women writers, so I’m a believer. Strength in women is there to be celebrated – and should be! Who is your favourite character in the Homestead Girls, or who did you enjoy writing the most? Lorna. Yep. And I’m having fun with her in my new book, too. I thought I’d lost her – so there must have been a really good reason she survived. :) Is it hard to find a balance when you describe the medical conditions and procedures? In medical scenes there is a balance of how graphic you need to be. I have to make sure I’m focussed on the emotional impact and progression of story and not just writing another medical scene. Very similar to adding sex to a book. Has it got a reason to be there? How does it propel the story – which sometimes I forget because I’m a pantser and not a plotter so medical scenes happen when they ping into my brain. But I also wanted to make sure the incredible job flight nurses and doctors do was a part of this story and it will be a part of the next book. I’m in the moment when I’m writing emergency situations so I’m feeling the stress of it all. J What are you working on at the moment? A non-fiction project, Australian Midwives, an anthology for Penguin, and I’m loving the incredible women I get to interview. Plus 500 words a day on the next book set in Mica Ridge. Plus two other projects. So I’m a little busy because I work 28 hours a week and LOVE my job as a Midwifery Educator so not leaving that any time soon. Just need to sleep less. Like you J Thanks Annie and happy writing to you, too. xxFi You can find The Homestead Girls here: http://www.penguin.com.au/products/9781760140366/flying-doctors-1-wt-epub My review: What a wonderful and uplifting story. Fiona McArthur has captured the essence of female friendship in this heart warming story. The characterisation of each person , even the minor characters, was finely drawn, and I felt as though I was a part of the community. A wonderful story, with the added bonus of a second romance. Highly recommended. Most of my guests write contemporary romance, or romantic suspense, but today’s guest, Deborah O’Brien delves a little bit deeper into the lives of her characters in her book The Trivia Man. For a rich and satisfying read, this book comes highly recommended.
Buy Link: http://www.randomhouse.com.au/books/deborah-obrien/the-trivia-man-9780857988027.aspx The Trivia Man explores the challenges of conformity in the twenty first century. Juxtaposing eight-year-old Phillip with his uncle, Kevin Dwyer, O'Brien provides a contrast of the diagnosis of a developmental disorder in the educational and social world of today, against the mere acceptance of Kevin as a quirky child and an adult who now lives a very structured life. Using the structure of a weekly trivia competition the reader sees the development of a relationship between Kevin and Maggie Taylor, a woman who has the ability to accept him as he is. Maggie has her own problems as do the other members of the team that Kevin joins up with. This quirky tale explores the concept of labelling people who are different. At times, the language and the introspection of both Kevin and Maggie are poignant, as they each face their fears. Kevin, of acceptance, and Maggie of being unloved. ‘Apart from her parents and her dog, nobody had loved her, not in an all consuming, unconditional kind of way.’ She has tried to win back Josh, a man from her past who has rejected her twice before. In the interval at each week’s trivia night, Kevin and Maggie begin a dialogue and we see their growth as they each accept the person they are. In a society that is intolerant of difference, Deborah O’Brien draws the reader into the thoughts and lives of the protagonists. Each character is beautifully drawn, including Kevin’s sister, Beth, and the other members of the trivia team—a same sex couple who are trying to have a baby, and an intolerant doctor This was a thoroughly entertaining and insightful read which will leave the reader a little more thoughtful of people who are ‘different.’ Follow the blog tour to http://duffythewriterblog.com on Tuesday 9th June. I am absolutely delighted today to welcome the fabulous Helene Young to my chair. Let's give Helene a warm welcome. Helene lives my dream...she lives on the water on her beautiful catamaran with her very own captain! So let's ask her some questions about her life and her wonderful new book Northern Heat. 1. Helene, I love that you live with Captain G on your boat, Roo-Bin-Esque. What is the best thing about living on the water? I love waking up to the sound of water against the hull with the lighting filtering through the portholes. If the wind is strong the boat almost feels like a living breathing thing, whispering and moaning, the rigging thrumming as she tugs on the anchor.I love the freedom the boat gives us. It’s magical to mooroff an island in water so clear I can watch the anchor flash silver as it sinks to the bottom, knowing that we will lay the first footprints for the day on the sandy beach. I love watching the sunset over land – and I may just take a photo or two of that particular moment! 2. Does your choice of home assist or hinder your writing? Do you have a writing corner? I have two places I write on the boat – either in the main cabin or on the back deck. The one and only draw back I’ve found is that the sunlight can make seeing the computer screen difficult some days and I have to draw the curtains on the glorious view. 3. Will you travel the world in your boat...or is it more a home base? Think of the inspiration! We plan to see more of the Australian coastline to start with - and there are so many wonderful waterways – but we will be heading off-shore. New Caledonia is definitely on the agenda. And yes, the inspiration is endless! 4. What is your absolute favourite place in Australia? Land or sea or both! It’s too hard to pick one place. I love the dusty centre of Australia and have enjoyed every moment of flying the length and breadth of our wonderful country. I’ve been very blessed to have such a great view every working day. But I also love the ocean. Currumbin Beach will always have a place in my heart with so many memories from growing up there. North Queensland with its soaring hills, clear water and coral reefs feels like home, but I know I’ll find many more amazing places in our travels. 5. Where do your ideas come from?
I think many of them start with the germ of an idea from a news story. Many of the characters turn up fully formed and then I need to work out how they fit into the story. The saying that fact is stranger than fiction is definitely true! 6. What was the moment of inspiration for Northern Heat There were several moments that coalesced into Northern Heat. I delivered a writing course in Cooktown and had a remarkable weekend with the talented writers who attended. I got a sense of the closeness of the community and feel of living in a small town, which I hadn’t on previous visits as a tourist. I knew my next story was going to feature Cooktown. The other thread of domestic violence grew from conversations with several friends who’d had difficult relationships. I wanted to explore some of the issues that they’d faced. None of my characters are ever real but both Kristy and Freya have drawn their courage, their honesty and their heartache from real women. 7. Many of your characters in your books have a dark or tortured past. Is this a devise you use for adding to the suspense? I don’t think it’s a device for adding suspenseso much as recognition that a difficult past is an integral part of why some characters put up strong resistance to admitting to their emotions. Maybe as readers we love to read about other people’s tragedies as a way of reassuring ourselves that our lives are in pretty good shape. Flawed characters, in my opinion, tend to be more interesting than ones who’ve suffered no hardship. 8. And a final question...what drew you into writing romantic suspense? I love an optimistic ending and an emotional rollercoaster in a story, but I also love fast paced action, suspense, crime and a little bit of mayhem. What I write definitely reflects the diet of romance, spy and suspense stories that I’ve been reading all my life – starting with Pookie the White Rabbit! I love being able to write strong heroines working in careers not normally associated with women. They are everyday women capable of anything. What’s not to love about a woman in jeopardy still capable of saving the world and rescuing the hero J Thanks for having me over for a visit, Annie! Northern Heat – Release date 27thMay, 2015 In steamy northern Queensland, Conor is rebuilding his shattered life. Working at Cooktown's youth centre has given him the chance to make a difference again, and the opportunity to flirt with Dr Kristy Dark. The local GP is hiding her own secrets and struggling to raise her feisty teenage daughter alone. When a severe cyclone menaces the coast, threatening to destroy everything in its path, tensions come to a head – and the weather is not the only danger. Cut off from the world and with her life on the line, Kristy will have to summon her courage and place her trust in Conor, or they'll both lose someone they love. Author Bio When Helene’s not writing novels she enjoys a busy career as the Queensland Regional Flying Manager with Australia’s largest regional airline. She’s worked in aviation for over 25 years and has 260 pilots reporting into her. She recently appeared in ‘Judith Lucy is All Woman’ in an episode showcasing women in aviation. She has twice won the highly coveted RWA’s Romantic Book of the Year in 2011 and 2012 and was shortlisted for the Daphne du Maurier Award for Mainstream Crime and Suspense. She has also been nominated in the Ned Kelly and Sisters inCrime Awards. Helene’s last novel, Safe Harbour, was voted Australia’s 2014 Favourite Romantic Suspense Novel. This is the fourth time Helene’s stories have won the award. A motivational speaker and writing mentor, Helene lives aboard a catamaran on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef and she plans one day to sail around the world in it. Find her at www.heleneyoung.com Follow on FB at: HeleneYoungAustralianAuthor On Twitter: @heleneyoung Or Instagram: heleneyoungauthor Buy Links http://www.booktopia.com.au http://www.amazon.com.au http://www.bookworld.com.au Northern Heat Trailer You Tube: Social media: https://youtu.be/_nC-4zrkbtM Please welcome Karen to the chair. Karen has a beautiful voice that takes you deeply into the minds and emotions of her characters. Karen, please tell us a little bit about the circumstances that lead to Red Rock North... In a universe teeming with galaxies, nebulas and black holes, our dinky planet is far less conspicuous than a feeble speck of dust. Add in the seven billion people populating earth—plus and minus daily births and deaths—and the chances of finding your one true love amidst the chaos of humanity are less favorable than winning the lottery. And yet, despite this immense convergence of human souls, invisible energy somehow finds its mark. Unlike celestial bodies, two souls that collide with the force of passion are meant to stay, not break apart. In Red Rock North, the odds already lean heavily toward disaster. Two people, years apart in age and life experience, fall in love. They go their separate ways,and perchance reunite, embracing their meager time together with abandonment. A pivotal moment of misunderstanding guarantees to keep them apart forever…unless, nearly six years after their wrenching, fate has its way. My reasons for writing Red Rock North began as a dire need to know the outcome for Kristina Sumner and Jake Weatherby. The future was left hanging in ambiguity at the end of my novel, Big Lies in Small Town, which takes them as far as the year of 2008. I wanted to discover if life and circumstances finally united them. When I started Red Rock North, I had no idea if their ending would be HEA. The novel unfolded on a melancholy note, with Kristina too busy to find love, and too in love with Jake Weatherby—after nearly six years—to invest energy in an activity counter intuitive to her extremely self-disciplined personality. I felt it important that my characters find a way to grow, not just in their daily lives, but also in their feelings and interaction with each other. Obviously a first love can be memorable, especially if the emotional and sexual connections are deep. The question is then, can a relationship, so easily shattered by a perceived slight, be resurrected, and endure? While the expectation for Kristina to be chaste following her breakup with Jake in 2009 might be unrealistic for most, her personal history was a guarantee that sleeping around was extremely out of character. Kristina met Jake when she was sixteen, and a high school junior in a rural community in northeastern California. Their first encounter occurred in 2008, inside the Lassen County Jail, where Kristina’s mother, Kate, was being held for questioning following the shooting of a white supremacist who had attacked the family—Kate, husband Paul, and sons Charlie Kat and Dakota—at roadside. Jake, a journalist for the Great Basin Register, was at the jail to obtain a scoop for the paper, and happened to be present when Kristina arrived to reunite with her family. Life in a small town meant that Jake was well aware of Kristina’s notoriety. Fame for Kristina had come with a cost, when in 2007 she was forced to kill a male classmate. Tucker Parker, weirdly obsessed with Kristina, had intended to kill her at a school-wide assembly. In the struggle for the gun, she managed to stomp Tucker to death, a boy twice her size and weight.This act implied that Kristina was a very focused individual, willing to use deadly force if necessary. Following the shocking incident, Kristina attended therapy sessions meant for victims of psychological trauma, and subsequently developed a deep distrust of males outside of her immediate family unit.Consequently she learned to direct her focus on academics as a means of survival—reasoning that she alone had the power to direct her life. As a contributor to the high school newspaper, Kristina’s rare objectivity had netted her a coveted position in the apprenticeship program with the Great Basin Register. During her tenure with the Register, Kristina proved a difficult ward for Jake, who’d been put in charge of her tutelage. Still damaged by her experience with Tucker Parker, Kristina doggedly kept the world at arm’s length. Only after she’d developed a professional working relationship with “Mr. Weatherby” did trust come into play—and deep affection. Before Kristina reached the age of consent, Jake departed Susanville for good, determined to allow her the latitude to concentrate on her education, and pursue a career. As he argued, “I won’t destroy your chances for making something important out of your life. I've passed that point myself, but you have a brilliant future.” When Kristina turned eighteen, and attending Berkshire University, less than sixty miles from Jake’s employment with The Washington Post, she tracked him down. She opened her heart to Jake, and shared six months of unbridled passion with the only man she trusted implicitly—but the moment she assumed Jake was unfaithful, she abruptly ended their affair. She compartmentalized her feelings; school, and then career were the center of her world. In the end, Kristina’s true success was in creating an emotional prison. Their six-month love story began and ended too quickly, until November of 2014, when Kristina returns home for a surprise visit with her family, and discovers that Jake has returned to Susanville—this time, with a new woman in his life, setting the stage for Red Rock North. How will Kristina handle her extreme feelings for Jake, while he shares his world with someone else? Can she forgive Jake for a long-ago perceived indiscretion, or will she continue to repeat the mistakes of the past? Buy links... available in both e-book and print. http://www.amazon.com/Rock-North-Karen-Kennedy-Samoranos-ebook/dp/B00UYFDPFS A big welcome to Jennifer Scoullar who has written a fabulous book set on the southern Great Barrier Reef.... and I love the cover too! Hi Annie, and thanks very much for having me on your wonderful blog. The romance writing community is a tight-knit one. I recall very well when we met at an RWA conference, seated together at a book-signing. You told me your inspirational story of going from teacher to tale-teller. I’m also a late starter to this writing game, so we have a lot in common.Including it seems, romance in exotic locations! My upcoming release, Turtle Reef, is somewhat of a departure for me in terms of setting. My earlier novels are stories of inland Australia: The Victorian high country, The Bunya Mountains, New South Wales’ glorious northern riverlands. Turtle Reef is set at the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef, on Queensland’s spectacular coral coast. It’s still a rural romance. My hero, Quinn, is a fifth generation cane farmer. But Zoe, my heroine, is a marine zoologist, and plenty of action takes place out on the reef itself. I needed to remind myself where my characters lived, both the human and animal ones. I believe in first-hand research, if at all possible. Google is great, but it will only take you so far. I’ve always been an amateur naturalist, and there are some wonderful books out there about the Barrier Reef. The Reef: A Passionate History by Iain McCalman comes to mind. But no amount of reading can beat time spent in a real setting. Reference books can’t buy you drinks at the bar and tell you stories. Statistics can’t paint pictures of a coral gardens. When I travelled to the heart of my story, maps turned into breathtaking scenery, anecdotes turned into colourful characters and the reef became a living, breathing example of how all life is connected. I based my research trip at Bargara, home of Mon Repos turtle rookery. This is the most significant nesting site for the endangered Loggerhead in the South Pacific. Fascinating days followed - exploring cane country, talking to locals, observing local flora and fauna. I discovered Bundaberg’s wealth of historic buildings, and took a boat up the Burnett River. I whale-watched at Hervey Bay and wandered historic Urangan Pier, which stretches almost a kilometre into the ocean. I spent hours at Reefworld - a small, family-run aquarium which does a great job rehabilitating marine turtles. It’s one of the few in the world to use sand-filtered sea water and natural sunlight. The seaquarium in Turtle Reef is based on this design. Oh, and I went island hopping. Talk about romantic! Turtle Reef’s Lady Elizabeth Island is a combination of the two most southerly cays of the Barrier Reef - Lady Elliot and Lady Musgrave. Dolphins surf the waves. White coral sands chime with each footstep. Rare pisonia forests abound with black noddies and shearwaters - all surrounded by the sheer beauty of pristine, coral lagoons. I want to go back, right now! Researching Turtle Reef ranks as one of the absolute highlights of my writing life. Y0u can find Turtle Reef in the stores and online here. In 2015 Entangled Publishing is releasing an exciting new series in the Indulgence imprint: Men of the Zodiac series... My book, Ten days in Tuscany, will be on out in April and I can't wait! Who doesn't love an Italian billionaire! He can't resist a challenge. She can't resist a dare... This week, the first book in the series...Impulse Control by Amanda Usen has been released and I am delighted to feature her in the chair today! Amanda knows two things for certain: chocolate cheesecake is good for breakfast, and a hot chef can steal your heart. Her husband stole hers the first day of class at the Culinary Institute of America. They live in Western New York with their three children, one gerbil, four fish, a tortoise, and a beagle. Amanda spends her days teaching pastry arts classes and her nights writing sexy contemporary romance. If she isn't baking or writing, she can usually be found reading a book and trying to get out of cooking dinner. Keep reading as Amanda has a great giveaway below. Connect with Amanda: Website Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads Pinterest And this is the book.. I can't wait to read it! Synopsis: Survivalist Russ Donovan is the toughest man in America, with a reality TV show to prove it. Now he’s been strong-armed into filming a new show with dainty lifestyle expert Susannah Stone. But while “At Home in the Wild” could mean millions for his family’s charity, Russ plans to put Little Susie Homemaker to the test—in the Adirondack Mountains in the dead of winter. And there's no way she'll be able to hack it... Susannah is tougher than she looks. She's had to fight her way through life, and there's no way she'll let a bossy mountain man show her up. When she gets him on her turf, he’s in serious trouble. But now she's run into a bit of problem. Because no one—least of all Russ and Susannah—expects sparks to fly both on camera and off. And now everyone will see their risqué rivalry break all of the rules... Find out more at: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | More Buying Options Daily #giveaways and 1 Grand Prize up for grabs during the blitz for IMPULSE CONTROL, an Entangled Indulgence novel by Amanda Usen! To celebrate IMPULSE CONTROL, there will be daily #giveaways on each day of the blitz! Each day THREE winners will receive a signed print copy of one of Amanda’s backlist titles (international winners will receive a digital copy). Daily drawings will be held at 4:00pm EST and winners will be announced on Amanda’s Facebook page and on Twitter. And wait, there’s MORE! The grand prize winner, chosen at the end of the blitz, will #win a digital copy of each new release in the Men of the Zodiac Series, as they release each month, for a total of 12 books over the year! Winner will be announced on Amanda’s Facebook and Twitter at the end of the blitz. Winners will need to contact Amanda with their preferred digital book, email address and shipping address, at amanda AT amandausen DOT com. |
Annie SeatonAnnie loves sharing her writing chair with special guests! If you'd like a turn...please email her! annieseaton26@gmail.com Archives
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