Bookish Bron: historical fiction

#HERSTORY Q&A :: Tea Cooper :: The Girl in the Painting

The first book I read from Harlequin's HERSTORY campaign - featuring historical fiction about women who rebel - was Tea Cooper's The Girl in the Painting. This was my second time reading a book by Tea, having read The Woman in the Green Dress last year, and I absolutely enjoyed both - you can see my reviews here and here.

This week Tea has kindly answered a few questions I asked about The Girl in the Painting, as well as giving us a little sneak peek at what she has coming up for us next.

First, here's a little reminder of what The Girl in the Painting is about...

Maitland 1913 Miss Elizabeth Quinn is something of an institution in Maitland Town. For longer than anyone could remember she and her brother, businessman Michael, have lived in the impressive two-storey stone house next to the church. When she is discovered cowering in the corner of the exhibition gallery at the Technical College the entire town knows something strange has come to pass.

Was it the prehistoric remains or perhaps the taxidermy exhibition that had reduced the whale-boned encased pillar of society to a quivering mess? Or is there something odd about a striking painting on loan from the National Gallery?

Mathematical savant Jane Piper is determined to find out. Deposited on the doorstep of the local orphanage as a baby, she owes her life and education to the Quinns' philanthropic ventures and Elizabeth has no one else to turn to.

As the past and the present converge, Elizabeth's grip on reality loosens. Can Jane, with her logical brain and penchant for puzzles, unravel Elizabeth's story before it is too late?

The historical notes at the back of The Girl in the Painting tell us that it is based around a series of unconnected historical events that really happened. I’d love to know about your inspiration for the story - was there an event in particular that inspired you? Or did the characters come to you first?

Without a doubt the character of Elizabeth came first. Maitland is a fascinating town full of beautifully restored buildings and I could see Elizabeth, in 1911, walking down the street. The focus of the story became Who is Miss Elizabeth Quinn?

I feel like it must be hard sometimes to decide how to bring together historical events into a story like this (which you do so beautifully!), and what to leave out. Were there any really cool stories/events you came across while working on The Girl in the Painting that you would have liked to have included in the book but that didn’t quite fit?

I have a hankering to write an entire book about one piece of research! I have some good friends in Mudgee and I have spent time in the area and visited Hill End several times. I’ve always known that one day it would end up in a book so I revisited Hill End. The museum had been revamped—it used many, many photographs from The Holtermann Collection and brought alive the life and times in the area. So off I went to investigate The Holtermann Collection. I discovered that it wasn’t until after the Second World War that the 3500 wet plate glass negatives had been found in a GARDEN SHED behind a house in North Sydney! I’m trying to ignore my itchy fingers and finish the books I am currently working on! (If you’re interested, they were acquired by the State Library of NSW and have been restored and can be viewed on line.) There’s such a story in that!

I really love the way that we meet Elizabeth and Michael in 1913, and then learn more about them as their younger selves grow. When you were writing them, did you start with them in 1913 and then learn more about them as you wrote? Or did you have an idea of their backstories when you started?

As I’ve said, Elizabeth came first, and Maitland, so the story started there, followed by the question how did they get there!

Did you have a favourite scene to write, or one that was particularly difficult to write?

There was one integral scene which was rewritten. It was very close to the end of the book (Oh! Difficult. Spoilers. I don’t think I want to explain!!) Suffice to say it had ramifications throughout the entire story but after much angst I know it was the right decision!

Can you tell us anything about what you are working on next?

I’m currently deep in the structural edits for my November, 2020 release THE CARTOGRAPHER’S SECRET. It tells the story of Evie Ludgrove who lives in the shadow of her father’s obsession with Ludwig Leichhardt! No more spoilers! I’m also playing with my 2021 story THE PALAEONTOLOGIST. Quite where it will go I am not sure but it is a mystery set in the Hunter Valley, at a ‘real’ place called Bow Wow Gorge! (How could I bypass such a wonderful name?) So this time the setting came before the characters!

Lastly, I’d love to know what you are currently reading, or whether there is something you have read recently and loved that you would like to recommend to us?

Because of my editing I am re reading one of the books that were central to my research for THE CARTOGRAPHER’S SECRET—WHERE IS DOCTOR LEICHHARDT? by Darrel Lewis. I’m also reading one of Nicole Alexander’s books RIVER RUN. I love Nicole’s books and somehow have managed to miss the last couple. I recently finished THE LOST FLOWERS OF ALICE HART which I highly recommend.

Thank you so much!

My pleasure! Thank you for the invitation.

***

Thanks again to Harlequin Australia for sending me this gorgeous book, and the others featuring in the HERSTORY campaign. You can check them all out here, and my other #HERSTORY blog posts are all here.

And, of course, huge thanks to Tea for taking the time to answer my questions so I could share them here!

You can find The Girl in the Painting on Goodreads here, and find out more about Tea and all of her books (check out those beautiful covers on her most recent novels!) on her website here.

xo Bron

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#HERSTORY Q&A :: Kerri Turner : The Daughter of Victory Lights

Yesterday I posted my review of The Daughter of Victory Lights (check it out here if you missed it). I loved this book, and today I'm sharing a little Q&A with author Kerri Turner, who was kind enough to answer some questions I had for her about her books and writing. Enjoy!

In the notes at the back of The Daughter of Victory Lights you tell us a bit about some of the actual people/events that you drew on for the story, and I was really struck by how perfectly you have pulled these together into a beautiful story – for instance in the way that Evie’s training on spotlights during the war helps her find a place on the Victory. When you were first inspired to write The Daughter of Victory Lights did you start with the events and then put characters in, or did Evie and Flynn come to you first and you built the story around them?

The characters definitely came first. The very first spark of inspiration for this book was the Victory boat, and from there I quickly became familiar with the character of Evie. I knew she worked on the boat, and that she was not a performer but doing something behind the scenes instead. I had to work my way backward into finding the events that would have led to her working on this boat, and that’s how I came across the 93^rd Searchlight Regiment, which opened up a world of possibility for the story. With Flynn, I knew that he was an American man (as I wanted to give a different perspective of those wartime and post-war years), and I had certain events that I needed him to be around to witness or take part in. I also knew that he was suffering from PTSD as a result of his work during the war and that this would inform a great deal of his story. The Graves Registration Unit fit with everything I had planned, and allowed me to go deeper into the kinds of awful, unheard-of experiences so many suffered through.

One of the key themes that comes up throughout The Daughter of Victory Lights is the difficulty so many people experienced with getting back to ‘normal’ life after the war. Was this aspect of post-war life something that you were particularly interested in drawing out of Evie and Flynn’s stories, and can you tell us a bit about whether you had to approach writing each character differently given the different kind of challenges they faced?

While doing my research (which is when a majority of my storyline is formed), the effects of post-war expectations was a subject matter that I kept coming across again and again. People who had lived through the war brought it up in nearly every interview or memoir I read – whether they were returned servicemen told to be strong, stoic and emotionless leaders of their families, or women systematically silenced when it came to their wartime work and forced back into rigid domestic roles. So while I did have to approach the two characters differently, it was the sameness of their experiences that I ended up wanting to capture. Flynn struggles with PTSD (although it was called shellshock back then), while Evie struggles with the societal expectations of getting married and having children, and the familial rifts caused by not following the excepted life script of the time. For both of them, this results in a sense of not fitting in, of being abnormal or ungrateful; but also of not knowing that everyone else is struggling too. And that’s what it came down to: after the war, despite the many different experiences, despite the fact they’d survived, despite peace being declared and life supposedly getting better, there was this silent, internal struggle that many were going through. A shared experience they didn’t know they were sharing. I wanted to put that on the page.

The Daughter of Victory Lights is your second novel, following The Last Days of the Romanov Dancers which was released in 2019. Was the experience of writing it very different to working on your debut novel?

I actually began work on this novel before I even got a publishing deal for my first book. Which is something I’m very grateful I did, because it helped me avoid the dreaded second book syndrome we hear so much about. After you’ve been through that publishing process once, you suddenly know the expectations that are riding on you and your work. You have the voices of publishers, editors, agents, publicists, reviewers, etc in your head. I think if I didn’t already have a story that I was passionate about and excited to work on, it would’ve been easy to have my own writing voice and creativity drowned out by those other voices. Not because they are trying to stifle you – those people are so supportive and helpful and completely on your side! – but just because you want to live up to all the things you did well, and improve on the things you didn’t. And there’s the added weight of knowing how many people besides yourself put in work on your book, and wanting to make it the best it can be for all of their sakes. One particular difficulty I did have with this book as opposed to my first one though, was that the first drew heavily on my own background training in ballet. That gave me a bit of a crutch to lean on, and a way of boosting my own confidence. I knew what I was talking about, it was my area of expertise, and had lived so many of the experiences I felt I could bring them to life and do them justice. This book, while it still has a performing art in it, didn’t have that same element of bringing my own background into it. I was afraid that it wasn’t going to be received as well – that this book would expose me as a dancer who got lucky instead of a writer. Luckily this hasn’t been the case at all. If anything, it’s been the opposite.

Did you have a favourite scene to write, or one that was particularly difficult to write, and I wonder whether you think they are the same ones that readers might find the most lovely or difficult to read (there were a lot of tears involved in reading this book!)?

Some of my favourite scenes to write actually didn’t make it into the final book! I wrote quite a lot about the secondary characters Humphrey and Bee. Originally we saw both their backgrounds and how the Victory came to be. It was exuberant and colourful, and there were other characters on board the Victory we got to meet. But in the end the story was becoming too cluttered with so many different perspectives. It was one of those ‘kill your darlings’ moments writers need to get so good at! Of the existing scenes, my favourites are what I call the ‘quiet moments’. Those little moments where there’s not a lot of action but there is some sense of human connection. Like Flynn finding Lucy in the sea fog, or the final scene (no spoilers!). I have had a few readers say those are the moments they particularly enjoy too. The most difficult to write was the reveal of what happened to Evie. The why, when and how of it has always stayed the same, but the small details around that event went through multiple changes and multiple drafts. It was definitely an emotional experience working on that scene, and I absolutely did cry every time.

Can you tell us anything about what you are working on next?

I’m actually switching between two different projects at the moment. Both are historical fiction novels, and both once again have a performing arts element to them, although they are set in different times and different countries. The manuscripts are at different stages of completion. I like to set a manuscript aside after I’ve done some major work on it (a completed first draft, or a structural edit, for instance), so I can come back to it weeks or months later with completely fresh eyes. But I can’t spend that time not writing, so that’s why I have more then one project on the go – while one is set aside, I pick up the other one. I don’t have any news as far as publication deals or dates with either of them yet, but fingers crossed I will in the near future!

Lastly, I’d love to know what you are currently reading, or whether there is something you have read recently and loved that you would like to recommend to us?

Because I write historical fiction, it’s also my favourite genre to read. There are so many amazing historical fiction novels coming out right now, and so many of them are focussed on women, which I love because women’s stories haven’t been given as much room throughout history. A few I’ve really enjoyed recently are Josephine’s Garden by Stephanie Parkyn, Fled by Meg Keneally, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

***

Huge thanks to Kerri for 'chatting' about her writing with me!

You can find The Daughter of Victory Lights on Goodreads here.

xo Bron

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In Australian author, australian women writers

#HERSTORY :: The Daughter of Victory Lights :: Kerri Turner

Tonight I'm sharing my review of The Daughter of Victory Lights by Kerri Turner, which is one of the gorgeous novels in Harlequin Australia's HERSTORY : Women Who Rebel campaign. This was a wonderful read! Here's the synopsis from the publisher's website (and you can check it out on Goodreads here):

1945: After the thrill and danger of volunteering in an all-female searchlight regiment protecting Londoners from German bombers overhead, Evelyn Bell is secretly dismayed to be sent back to her rigid domestic life when the war is over. But then she comes across a secret night-time show, hidden from the law on a boat in the middle of the Thames. Entranced by the risqué and lively performance, she grabs the opportunity to join the misfit crew and escape her dreary future.
At first the Victory travels from port to port to raucous applause, but as the shows get bigger and bigger, so too do the risks the performers are driven to take, as well as the growing emotional complications among the crew. Until one desperate night ...

1963: Lucy, an unloved and unwanted little girl, is rescued by a mysterious stranger who says he knows her mother. On the Isle of Wight, Lucy is welcomed into an eclectic family of ex-performers. She is showered with kindness and love, but gradually it becomes clear that there are secrets they refuse to share. Who is Evelyn Bell?

I loved this book and gave it a full five stars.

There was just something really enchanting about the way that Turner tells her story - both the pace of the plot and the development of the characters were spot on for me. I loved that the point of view characters were flawed - and bordering on unlikable, but something about the way their stories were told was so tender that I couldn't help loving them anyway.

The descriptions of Evie and Flynn's experiences during wartime felt so thoroughly researched. I found reading about the work they each did was interesting and awful, heartbreaking but also uplifting - the sense of satisfaction (maybe?) at doing something really comes through. While the descriptions of war were raw and detailed, I thought the writing was respectful and even the most confronting parts didn't feel gratuitous to the story.

One of the key issues drawn out in The Daughter of Victory Lights is the difficulty so many people had with returning to 'normal' life after the war was over. This is something that I find so fascinating - for instance, that soldiers (and others on the front lines) could live through such horrors and be expected to come home and be ok, and that women who experienced such independence were then supposed to go back to their roles as housewives dependent on husbands. I thought the exploration of these themes through Evie and Flynn's stories was really wonderfully done - the characters and their experiences felt so authentic, and the impact of this on the rest of their lives was really clear.

The story that Turner tells is about Evie and Flynn post-war unfolds so beautifully - there were some surprises and, to be honest, quite a lot of tears! This is definitely one to read with a tissue or seven nearby! I absolutely recommend this to lovers of historical fiction, and I'm already excited about whatever Turner is writing next.

Kerri has very kindly answered some questions for me to share here too - I'll pop those up tomorrow!

You can find out more about HERSTORY : Women Who Rebel on the website here.

xo Bron

***

The Daughter of Victory Lights by Kerri Turner

Out now from Harlequin Books Australia (HarperCollins)

Source: I received a copy of from Harper Collins Australia for review. All views are my own.

Category: Historical fiction (WW2, post-war)
Themes: Post-war expectations, feminism, family, found family

Format: Paperback

Pages: 384 pages

RRP: $32.99

The Daughter of Victory Lights on Goodreads

Find Kerri Turner online here.

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In australian women writers, Harlequin Books

#HERSTORY preview :: The Darkest Shore :: Karen Brooks

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In currently reading, historical fiction

Mantel in March :: Wolf Hall :: Hilary Mantel

If you've been in a bookshop in the past few weeks you've probably seen that The Mirror and the Light - the third book in Hilary Mantel's historical fiction series about Thomas Cromwell - is out now. This would have to be one of the most anticipated books of 2020 - the previous two books in the series both won Man Booker prizes, and we've been waiting since 2012 for this final installment in the trilogy. When one of my favourite bookish people - Simon from Savidge Reads - announced he was hosting a readalong (#MantelinMarch) of the trilogy to celebrate, I couldn't resist setting aside my giant TBR stack and joining in!

The readalong started at the start of the month, and the plan was to read all three books across the month. Trust me when I tell you this is no mean feat! Book one - Wolf Hall - is a huge 650 pages long. I have actually read this one before - in 2012 - and from memory I feel like it took me about 6 months. I do remember that I took it to the UK last time we were on holidays there, and I remember reading quite a lot of it in and around York, which was quite cool!

The timing of the readalong was that we should read about 100 pages each day, which would mean about a week for Wolf Hall. I didn't quite manage to keep up that pace - I feel like it isn't only a big book, but also quite dense. I spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out who was who in Henry VIII's court - which Thomas was related to whom, and how the families all fit together (thank goodness for google!). There is also something a bit particular about the style of the writing. I really enjoyed it, but it did take a bit to get into. One of the things I found tricky to start off with was that Mantel often refers to 'him' when she's writing dialogue, and I found it a bit hard to stay on top of which him in the room was saying what (until I got used to the fact that 'him' almost always means Cromwell.)

I managed to read my way through this one in just under two weeks, which I'm pretty pleased with, and I really enjoyed every bit. I'm super keen to watch some Tudor tv shows (including the Wolf Hall series!) AND of curse to read more about the Tudors (I feel like it would be a waste not to read as much about them as I can now that I'm a bit across who everyone is!). Obviously I'll be moving on with the next book in the series - Bring Up the Bodies - but I think what I'm going to do is read that one in April, and then The Mirror and the Light in May.

Let me know if you're reading these at the moment too!

xo Bron

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In Australian author, australian women writers

Q&A :: Alison Stuart :: The Postmistress / The Goldminer's Sister

Ok so it's no secret I loved Alison Stewart's The Postmistress when I read it over Christmas (if you haven't heard me rave about it yet you can check out my review here). I was so thrilled to find out that not only is Alison working on another book set in Maiden's Creek, but it is coming out really soon!

Alison was kind enough to answer some questions I had for her about her books and writing. Check out our little Q&A below.

Do you remember when the idea for The Postmistress first came to you, and what inspired you to write it?

I was asked by an American reader for recommendations for Australian romantic historicals and the list (at the time) was very thin… this coupled with a simply appalling Australian set historical written by an American author had started me thinking that maybe it was time I wrote a story set in my own backyard.

My husband and I were camping up on the Snowy River and over several glasses of a good red, on a rainy afternoon, we brainstormed some ideas for an Australian ‘small town’ historical romance. This was the idea I pitched to Harlequin MIRA and they accepted on proposal!

Most of the stories written about the Victorian goldfields are set in or around Ballarat. What inspired you to set your story in Gippsland?

The fact most goldfields stories are set in Ballarat or Bendigo, is exactly the reason I chose the lesser known (but very successful) Walhalla goldfield. I wanted a small town feel and the very geography of Walhalla made it an isolated and difficult place to get to (even until quite recently). Walhalla has been our favourite ‘go to’ place for nearly forty years so I felt confident that I knew it reasonably well. But I also didn’t want to be confined by a real place which is why Maiden’s Creek is a fictional shadow of the real Walhalla.

One of the things I loved about The Postmistress was that Adelaide and Caleb both had secrets, and we got to know them both better as they shared more with each other. When you were writing their story did these characters come to you already fully formed, or did you get to know them as you wrote?

It’s actually quite amusing to read back on my original submission to Harlequin

Caleb was originally: “James (Jem) Sandford: An American drifter. The youngest son of a lawyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, James (or Jem as he is known to his friends), studied law at Yale. He joined the confederate cause in the American Civil War as an officer in the cavalry…”

Adelaide was pitched as: “Adelaide Fox: The daughter of a respectable member of the lower aristocracy, Adelaide’s mother died when she was young leaving her in the care of her father, a remote and authoritarian figure. At Adelaide’s coming out ten years earlier, the naive girl of seventeen had been seduced by a friend of her father’s, an outwardly respectable married man…”

So while you can see the original bones of the character’s back stories were there, as the characters came to life, they told me their own stories (and in Caleb’s case… his correct name!).

I thought it was really interesting to read that parts of the story were inspired by real events. Were there any cool stories you came across during your research that you would have liked to include in the book but got left out?

There are some aspects of Walhalla’s history such as the railway and the cricket ground that came later and I couldn’t incorporate and wouldn’t have been appropriate in this story’s context. I would have loved to have used Williamstown more because it is full of fabulous stories… but maybe another time. As it was I could not believe my good fortune when I came across the stories of the smallpox scare and the death of the doctor. Not only were they contemporaneous to my story but were part of Walhalla’s real history.

Did you have a favourite scene to write, or one that was particulary difficult to write?

I really enjoyed writing the scenes where Adelaide and Caleb let their respective guards down and talked to each other with absolute honesty.

As for difficult… the whole book was difficult – it is much easier to write stories set in the English Civil War. The rigours of getting the research write and doing justice to a local audience were very stressful!

I was delighted to see that you have another story set in Maiden's Creek, The Goldminer's Sister, coming out in June 2020. Can you tell us anything about it yet?

I certainly can (on to the final edits as we speak). THE GOLDMINER’S SISTER is a stand alone story but is set in Maiden’s Creek a year after the events of THE POSTMISTRESS so lots of familiar characters. It has been fun to revisit them again. Caleb and Adelaide cast a shadow in the book but they are still overseas. The protagonists in this story are Will Penrose’s sister, Eliza, and the new Mine Superintendent, Alec McLeod. It has been a challenge to conjure a romantic hero out of an engineer (but I had plenty of material to work with – being married to one).

The ‘blurb’ is up (as are preorders) and the cover will be revealed shortly and it’s gorgeous!

“Gold is a fever. Will it lead her to love ... or death? A suspenseful romance set on the turbulent goldfields of 1870s Australia, for readers of The Postmistress and The Woman in the Green Dress.

'There are people in this town with the gleam of gold in their eyes and cold steel in their hearts.'

1873. Eliza Penrose arrives in the gold mining town of Maiden's Creek in search of her brother, planning to make a new life for herself. Instead she finds a tragic mystery - and hints of betrayals by those closest to her.

Mining engineer Alec McLeod left Scotland to escape the memory of his dead wife and child. Despite the best efforts of the eligible ladies of Maiden's Creek, Alec is determined never to give his heart again.

As lies and deceit threaten Eliza's life, Alec steps in - although he has problems of his own, as he risks his livelihood and those he holds dear to oppose the dangerous work practices at the Maiden's Creek Mine.

When disaster draws the pieces of the puzzle together, Eliza and Alec must save each other - but is it too late?”

The preorder links are here: https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781489256485/the-goldminers-sister/

Lastly, I'd love to know what you are currently reading, or whether there is something you have read recently and loved that you would like to recommend to us?

I generally have a few books on the go and my general reading is mystery, although my current bedtime read is RED, WHITE AND ROYAL BLUE (Casey McQuiston)– which I picked up as Goodreads recommended read. I am enjoying it but the romantic premise took me by surprise (I probably should have read the blurb closer!). On audio I have just finished SCRUBLANDS by Chris Hammer, which was slow to start but had me gripped at the end. If you like historical mysteries, I do enjoy the Rhys Bowen Royal Spyness series which are light and fun – I’ve just finished her latest set in Kenya (my country of birth). For something a bit different, I have also just finished THE GHOST BRIDE by Yangsze Choo, a very unusual paranormal YA (?) revolving around the Chinese funeral traditions and concset in Malacca (a town I know quite well). I believe it is being developed into a Netflix series.

***

HUGE thanks to Alison for 'chatting' with me about her books - I appreciate it so much!

I can't wait for The Goldminer's Daughter to come out - you can add it to your Goodreads here, and preorder here.

xo Bron

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#HERSTORY Q&A :: Tea Cooper :: The Girl in the Painting

#HERSTORY Q&A :: Kerri Turner : The Daughter of Victory Lights

#HERSTORY :: The Daughter of Victory Lights :: Kerri Turner

#HERSTORY preview :: The Darkest Shore :: Karen Brooks

Mantel in March :: Wolf Hall :: Hilary Mantel

Q&A :: Alison Stuart :: The Postmistress / The Goldminer's Sister

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#HERSTORY Q&A :: Tea Cooper :: The Girl in the Painting

#HERSTORY Q&A :: Kerri Turner : The Daughter of Victory Lights

#HERSTORY :: The Daughter of Victory Lights :: Kerri Turner

#HERSTORY preview :: The Darkest Shore :: Karen Brooks

Mantel in March :: Wolf Hall :: Hilary Mantel

Q&A :: Alison Stuart :: The Postmistress / The Goldminer's Sister

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