Showing posts with label Tarzali. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tarzali. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Love this book or your money back

That's the publisher's promise on a big gold sticker on the front of the book I'm currently reading.
The book is The Rose of Sebastopol by Katherine McMahon and it's a historical novel set in the Crimean War.
So far, I'm only 65 pages into it and I'm very much enjoying it. I'm wondering if I'd be game to ask for my money back if I didn't enjoy it. Somehow, I doubt it. (I'm not very bolshi about that sort of thing.) But wouldn't it wonderful to have that kind of publisher support?
My current reading tastes are tending towards historical novels and Young Adult fiction. Two YA books arrived from amazon yesterday and I'm keenly looking forward to reading them, too. One is a romance set in WW2 by Eva Ibbotson. I just adored Which Witch? and used it every year when I was teaching Yr 8. This was pre-Harry Potter and much cleverer, in my humble opinion.

We've just had a lovely weekend at Tarzali, gardening, cutting grass and relaxing. I wish I could share with you how lovely it is to sit on our veranda and watch the soft misty rain drift across the hills and valleys and to see the way the different folds and layers of landscape are brought into sharper perspective or diminished by the ever changing light. Here are a couple of pictures that we took on the weekend, but they don't quite bring the experience to life.
Yes, there's been more rain in FNQ. Wish I could parcel some up and send it to Bron Jameson.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

A short break

We're heading to Tarzali for a couple of days. Hope to be back before the Easter rush. Think of us intrepidly crossing flooded rivers ( it's hardly stopped raining in North Queensland since December), or noting the growth of trees we've planted, bemoaning the weeds, starting up the brush-cutter...

Oh, and I'll still be trying to maintain my daily word count. I'm writing a mother's day novella at the moment, while my editor reads my latest submission. Two very different settings -- variety keeps me inspired -- although I understand that readers love a writer who gives them the same kind of story over and over.

But I can't resist setting this new story on a tropical island. Here I am, surrounded by islands other people can only dream about. It's only fair I put one or two into books, isn't it?