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Plus your choice of one of my Penguin novels...

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A pre-Christmas giveaway.

 I have a new romance coming out on New year's Day.



 It's called THE HUSBAND SHE"D NEVER MET and, like the very first romance I ever wrote, it's an amnesia story.

Romantic Times have given it four stars and the reviewer comments...  A mystery filled with intertwining secrets makes Hannay's story all the more interesting...

A lovely big box of the book arrived yesterday and as Christmas is on the horizon, I decided it's time for a giveaway.

To be in the draw, you can leave a comment on my Facebook page or here. Good luck!!

This week at our place....

I found a very Christmassy looking bush in our patch of rainforest.

The lilies I planted in the grove (that we planted a few years earlier) all flowered.

And I worked out how to finish my current book with sticky notes on my study wall.

No, I'm sorry the hearts aren't sex scenes. They mark a different time line. :)

Oh, yes, and I changed the banner at the top of this blog. Not sure how it works on your screen, but I need to slide my browser bar to see the whole panoramic shot that my nephew, who was visiting, took for us.

Jacaranda time...

We always make sure we include a trip to Herberton at this time of the year to see the jacarandas.

The displays aren't as stunning as the southern avenues and parkland, but I think I enjoy these trees so much because they pop up, dotting the hillsides, in what is normally pretty dry and dusty country. It's such a lovely surprise to emerge out of the bush and there they are...

Herberton is an old mining town to the west (still on the Tablelands) and the minerals in the soil give the trees a depth of colour that my camera couldn't quite capture.

 But I thought they were still worth sharing.

When I was growing up in Brisbane and we still had major external exams, there was a saying, "If you haven't started studying before the jacarandas flower, you've left it too late.' :)

An exciting week in North Queensland...

It's been very exciting in FNQ with the Cowboys' big win. We've been hanging out for this for years. We  had family staying for the big game and the girls decorated the TV area with plenty of posters supporting the team and they even taught us the Cowboys' song!

And my husband cooked the most scrumptiously delicious post-game roast lamb.

The girls also went fishing with Pappy to re-stock the fishpond.

And a great time was had by all!!!

My new love affair with spring...

I've written here before about my love of autumn and winter. Living in the tropics, we brace ourselves for summer (as opposed to em-bracing it) or we head south. Summer is heat, humidity and cyclones. And spring is often uncomfortably warm... a warning of what's to come.

This spring (so far -- and I'll probably regret saying this out loud) has been glorious with beautiful cool, sunny days with a light breeze. Perfect weather for being outdoors --which is something of a problem for a writer on a deadline.

But as gardening is my main form of exercise, it's important. Right?

And this spring I've been indulging in my love of dainty, romantic flowers. I've planted them in the ground.

In pots.

 And in hanging baskets.

 I've even planted them around the fishpond (currently minus fish, but granddaughters are coming and that will be rectified).

And I'm loving their generous showy display.

What are you doing this spring? Or autumn if you're on the other side of the globe?

This week in YOURS magazine...

I talk about my late start in writing and how I persisted in spite of rejections.

The Secret Years book trailer...

I was lucky enough to win the making of a book trailer for The Secret Years. Gabrielle Battistell of Trailermade Production has done a wonderful job of distilling one hundred and eleven thousand words into a few poignant images and telling phrases. What do you think?

It's spring again...

I have to confess I'm someone who's sad to see the end of winter. After living in the tropics for most of my adult life, winter has become my favourite season, especially now we're in the mountains and can enjoy a wood fire. Such a novelty!

But of course, spring is also lovely and brings new pleasures. Our garden is currently full of birds, attracted to the flowering grevilleas and bottle brush. They can be very noisy at times, but it's a wonderful sound.

And all kinds of flowers are popping up. Little white daisies, hippeastrums and day lilies. And the hanging baskets are starting to look pretty.

The other best thing about spring for me is that it marks the release of my new book The Secret Years. You can order a signed copy here.

There have been some lovely early reviews and I was rather chuffed that the editors at iBooks selected The Secret Years for their Best Books of the Month feature. A huge honour! Here's a link to the editors' comments .

I've also been invited to post on some other blogs about this book, so here are the links if you'd like to check out some of the background to this story.

Ten Terrifying Questions, Booktopia...

On writing dual time lines for Booktopia.

Where my story ideas come from with Australian Rural Romance... 

Military aspects of The Secret Years on Annie Seaton's blog...

Winter weather...

 No snow here in FNQ, but cold misty mornings where I am in the highlands.



We're certainly enjoying the fire, which is still a novelty after all those years in Townsville.





 And don't you love the creative woodpile our friend has made at Paluma?

In writing news, There are one hundred copies of The Secret Years coming for me to sign for Booktopia. The release date  is getting closer!!!

Ruby news

Lovely news that Moonlight Plains is a finalist in the long romance category of the Romantic Book of the Year award (fondly referred to a the RUBY) run by Romance Writers of Australia.

The award winner will be announced during the RWAust conference in Melbourne in August.

Exciting News!

I'm now working on the copy edits for The Secret Years which means the release date of August 26th is inching closer and the book is now available for pre-order on all the usual online sites. Here's the cover. What do you think?

I'm still gulping that my publishers are giving it a Guaranteed Great Read sticker -- quite wonderful to know they have so much faith in this story.



Here's the blurb:

When Lucy Hunter stumbles upon her grandfather Harry's World War II memorabilia, she finds a faded photograph of a stunning young woman known simply as 'George' and a series of heartfelt letters. They are clues about the secret years, a period of Lucy's family history that has been kept a mystery . . . until now.

How did a cattleman from north Queensland find forbidden love with the Honourable Georgina Lenton of London and persuade her to move to his isolated outback property? And why are the effects of this encounter still reverberating in the lives of Lucy and her mother, Rose, now?

As the passions of the past trickle down the years, three generations of one family pull together. Each must learn in their own way how true love can conquer the greatest challenges of all.

From the wild beauty of the Australian bush to England's rugged south coast, this is a deeply moving story of heartbreak, heroism and homecoming by a beloved, multi-award-winning author.

Praise for Barbara Hannay

'A sprawling love story set in the stunning north Queensland hinterland – this is Barbara Hannay at her best.' Queensland Country Life

'A story that will have you laughing one moment and in tears the next.' Talking Books

'Seamlessly weaves together a story of love lost and gained. Another delightful rural romance.' Book'd Out

Out now in Yours magazine!

A free a choice of three free Mills and Boon novels from Marion Lennox, Michelle Douglas and my book, Second Chance with Her Soldier. Oh, and there's a Lipton's teabag as well, so you can settle down and enjoy a lovely cuppa as you read... which is exactly how I love to imagine my readers.

Catching up...

So lately I've been busy...

I attended the Australian Romance readers Conference in Canberra, which was great fun. I shared an apartment with fabulous author Kelly Hunter. Here's a pic of Kelly at the book signing.

And here's my table minus me. Writing's a very lonely job, so it was wonderful to meet so many readers.

And we had wonderful views straight across Lake Burley-Griffin to Parliament House, which was especially interesting on Sunday morning, when all these balloons floated past.

Home again, I was busy working on revisions for The Secret Years (my editor at Penguin gave me some great suggestions) while also keeping an eye on Cyclone Nathan, who was dancing all around us, keeping skies grey and gloomy for days.

I picked these delicate roses so he couldn't have them, but in the end he took off without worrying us, which was good.

Yesterday, after sending off the revised manuscript, I decided to do something with our abundance of chokos, so I made bacon and curried choko soup.

  Which was surprisingly tasty. I shouldn't mention the mess the chokos made of my hand, but intensive hand cream has made a big difference already.

Now, I'm getting ready to go away again, this time on a writing retreat to the Gold Coast, so important decisions about clothes are being made, although of course, I'll be packing books and my laptop, too.

My fourth Penguin

This week I sent off the manuscript for my latest Penguin offering. It still amazes me that I can email all those pages and they arrive three states away in a matter of seconds. Now, fingers crossed...

So what am I working on now?

I'm moving into the final stages of a new book for Penguin Australia. This story is not linked to the previous three which all featured different members of the Fairburn family. It's similar to Moonlight Plains, though, in that it is another contemporary and historical story combined, but I don't want to jinx myself by giving away too many details until it's entirely finished. I can tell you, though, that it will be called The Secret Years... and this is a collage of some of the images that have inspired me. What do you think?