Bedtime has never been so bonkers!

Just as the Grimm brothers collected fairytales and Scheherazade told tales of the Arabian nights, now R A Spratt has assembled the most comprehensive collection of silly stories ever in Bedtime Stories.

Stories so good no human mind could come up with them. They were often dictated to R A by the world’s most glamorous storytelling pig, Nanny Piggins. There’s even a never-before-seen ‘Friday Barnes’ mystery, and tall tales from R A’s own domestic life. You’d better brace yourself – these are tales so tall you will get altitude sickness.

Read one of the stories here!

‘Medusa’

as told by Nanny Piggins

‘What’s wrong, Samantha?’ asked Nanny Piggins.

Samantha was sitting at the coffee table in the living room with her school books spread out in front of her. Seeing school books always made Nanny Piggins concerned. She didn’t approve of education, at least not formal education. She was a great believer in informal education, especially as it related to food.

‘We’re studying ancient Greek myths at school and I have to do a report on Medusa,’ said Samantha.

‘Ah yes,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘No wonder you’re distressed. It’s a terrible tale of prejudice, what happened to dear cousin Medusa.’

‘Cousin?’ said Derrick. ‘You’re saying that the character from ancient Greece, who had living snakes for hair and could turn men to stone with a glance of her eyes, was one of your cousins?’

‘Of course,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The only reason she was cursed to have snake hair and a stone-turning glare was because she was so staggeringly beautiful that the god of the sea, Poseidon, fell in love with her, which upset the goddess Athena. To be so beautiful you cause two separate gods to be overcome with emotion – of course she had to be a Piggins!’

‘So Medusa was a pig as well?’ asked Michael.

‘Yes, I said she was staggeringly, god-bewilderingly beautiful,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘You don’t think a human was capable of that level of attractiveness?’

Michael thought about the girls in his class at school. He liked them well enough. Glenda Babcock was seriously good at handball, but she did pick her nose a lot, so he couldn’t imagine her having that effect on anybody.

‘Well, I was supposed to borrow a book from the library and read up on her,’ said Samantha. ‘Then do a presentation in class tomorrow. But Margaret Wallace borrowed all the Greek mythology books before I could.’

‘Oh, those books don’t tell the true story anyway,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘The ancient Greeks were obsessed with men being brave, which is all very well, but when you’ve got a woman with a head full of snake hair you really need to accept that she is the star of the show. You’d better fetch a pen and paper and I’ll tell you what really happened.’

Samantha did as she was told and Nanny Piggins soon began her story.

As I say, it all started with dear cousin Medusa being staggeringly beautiful. Which sounds nice, but it was, in fact, a terrible burden. She couldn’t get a sensible conversation out of anybody.

She would be going about her daily ancient-story-days business – milking the goat, picking the olives – whatever they did back then. But when she went into town to sell her wares, men would just stare at her and drool.

Occasionally, the more confident of them would throw themselves on their knees and beg her to marry them. Mothers would plead with her to marry their sons. It was an ordeal.

She couldn’t even go and have a coffee with a friend, partly because the cappuccino had not been invented yet. And partly because if she did go to a coffee shop, the waiter would just stand and stare at her.

Well, one day it was particularly sunny and she was so exhausted from being beautiful that she thought she would relax by taking a nice walk along by the seaside. That was a dreadful mistake.

You see, Poseidon was the god of the sea back then, so he spotted her and it was love at first sight. He rose up out of the ocean, determined to woo her.

Now, I don’t want to get into the details. You can hardly take a book report to school tomorrow that is M-rated. But suffice to say, Poseidon was more attractive than the waiters and olive-oil salesmen in town, and she took a bit of a shine to him.

The problem was, in the ancient story days there was nowhere to take a girl on a date. There was no cinema, no ten-pin bowling, no laser tag. So instead Poseidon, being a bit lazy and not wanting to walk too far, took Medusa on a date to the nearest building. Which just happened to be a temple – a temple of Athena.

Everything was going along swimmingly until Athena found out. She did not appreciate hanky-panky going on in a building dedicated to worshipping her. She totally blew her stack. And when gods lose their temper, they really lose their temper.

In hindsight, if you are going to annoy any of the gods, Athena – the goddess of war – is probably the worst one to pick.

She was so mad she sent Poseidon packing back to the ocean floor, then she turned on Medusa and tried to think of some diabolical way of punishing her. Medusa was so pretty and her hair was so lovely, Athena’s eyes landed on that.

She used her Greek goddess powers to turn Medusa’s hair into snakes. Writhing venomous angry snakes. And she transformed Medusa’s face so that no man could look directly at her without being turned to stone.

Then she banished Medusa to live on an island with the two other Gorgons.

‘What’s a Gorgon?’ asked Michael.

‘In my opinion, it’s a very beauty-ist word,’ said Nanny Piggins.

‘But what does it mean?’ pressed Michael.

‘A Gorgon is a hideously ugly, spiteful monster,’ said Nanny Piggins.

Michael frowned as he tried to imagine such a thing.

‘Do you remember the look on the librarian’s face when she accused you of having a library book that was two years overdue?’

‘She was terrifying,’ said Michael.

‘Well, a Gorgon looks five thousand times worse than that!’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Plus, they get extra crabby because they’re cooped up on a tiny island.’

As you can imagine, this whole thing was deeply unpleasant for poor cousin Medusa.

Now, if Poseidon had been a nice god who loved Medusa for her personality, it all would have been all right. So long as they’d kept the fridge stocked with snake anti-venom and he never looked at her face, they could have had a perfectly nice relationship. But that was not Poseidon’s way. He was a rat.

I know it sounds judgemental to say so, but it’s just a fact. It comes up a lot in many Greek myths – the gods behaving like cads is always a key plot point.

So, living on a small island with no one for company except two Gorgons and a head-full of angry snakes, year-by-year Medusa became even more bitter and ever more spiteful.

Okay, that’s the back story.

Now, this is the bit where the ‘hero’ comes in. Flash forward many years, and there was a precocious youth called Perseus. He had a lovely mother – so lovely that the king wanted to marry her. Perseus did not like this idea. So, to get him out of the way, the king set Perseus a challenge.

The king challenged him to fetch the head of the Gorgon Medusa. It was the hardest thing he could think of getting the boy to do. The king thought he was particularly clever, because it was the ancient story times. There were no helicopters or jet planes. The only way Perseus could get there was by sailing, which can take forever, especially if there is no wind. Or your boat sinks.

Then Perseus came to a statue of a soldier holding up his sword, ready to strike.

The king thought this would give him plenty of time to marry Perseus’s mother while he was away.

So Perseus set off and there was lots of boring sailing action. You can imagine that for yourselves. Ships tossed and buffeted. Terrible storms. Heroic sailors enduring weather. All the usual stuff. Then finally they arrived at the island. At this point, Perseus was feeling a little bit afraid, because he didn’t really have a plan. He knew there were three Gorgons but what if he cut the head off the wrong one? That would be a terrible faux pas. Very embarrassing.

He was wandering around the desolate island, wondering where the Gorgons might be – there were no semi-detached cottages, no palaces, not even a tent – when he came to a cave.

It did not look like a terribly nice place to live. There was a tremendous draft from the sea. And there was bat poop everywhere, so apparently there was no cleaner. But Perseus had not walked too far into the cave when he was surprised to see a hyper-realistic statue of a Greek fisherman. Perhaps the Gorgons weren’t so bad if they liked to keep art about their home.

Perseus walked deeper into the cave and he came across another, really impressive, very realistic statue of a Persian sailor. These Gorgons were more sophisticated than he had imagined if they appreciated multicultural imagery. Then Perseus came to a statue of a soldier holding up his sword, ready to strike.

Perseus was just admiring the craftsmanship, and marvelling at how you couldn’t see any tool marks on the beautiful statue, when a thought occurred to him. He can’t have been terribly bright or the thought would have occurred to him earlier. He realised – these were not statues. These were people. People who had been frozen forever in their final moment alive when they had set eyes on the most fearsome Gorgon of them all – Medusa.

Perseus began to feel that perhaps this trip was not the smartest thing he had ever agreed to. But there was no time to run away in fear because, at that moment, he heard a noise from the back of the cave. A shuffling sound. Of someone walking towards him across the dirt floor. And as they drew closer he could hear something else – the hiss of snakes.

‘I want to go to the bathroom!’ cried Boris. This is what he always said when they went to the movies and they got to a frightening bit. Nanny Piggins had taught him to do this when he was a young bear club so that he wouldn’t have to embarrass himself and admit to feeling scared.

‘I know, dear,’ said Nanny Piggins kindly. ‘But just hang on a moment. It gets less scary soon.’

‘Do you promise?’ asked Boris.

‘Of course,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Medusa was a Piggins. Have faith in her.’

‘Now, where was I? Oh yes …’

Perseus was quaking with fear as Medusa shuffled towards him.

‘And what do you think you are doing, invading my home without even knocking?’ demanded Medusa.

Perseus clapped his hands over his eyes so he would not be turned to stone by her glance.

‘There was no door to knock on,’ said Perseus.

‘And you didn’t take that as a sign that I didn’t want people to enter?’ asked Medusa Piggins.

‘Um . . .’ said Perseus.

‘You just wandered in and had a look around?’ asked Medusa. ‘Where were you taught manners? Obviously not in a pigsty. That was where I was raised, and my mother insisted on impeccable etiquette.’

‘I’ve been sent by the king to cut your head off,’ explained Perseus.

‘I’d like to see you try,’ said Medusa. ‘You can’t even look at me without turning to stone. It’s going to be very hard to aim.’

‘I shall not fail,’ cried Perseus valiantly, as he closed his eyes and swung his sword in the direction of

Medusa.

She easily ducked out of the way.

‘Stop swinging that around,’ said Medusa. ‘It’s dangerous. You could have someone’s eyes out.’

‘That’s the whole point,’ said Perseus, taking another swing and missing. ‘I’m going to chop your head off.’

‘But I haven’t done anything to you,’ said Medusa.

‘You’re a horrible Gorgon,’ said Perseus. ‘I would be ridding the world of a dreadful monster.’

‘You’re the one barging into a lady’s home and swinging a deadly weapon about with your eyes closed,’ said Medusa. ‘The fact that I’ve been having a bad hair day for the last millennium doesn’t compare to that.’

The snakes she had for hair hissed their agreement.

At that moment, Perseus noticed that he could see Medusa in the reflection of his shield, and that seeing her in reflection did not turn him to stone. Now he could aim. He picked up the shield and walked backwards towards Medusa, held up his sword and took a great, big, well-aimed swing.

‘Oh no!’ cried Boris, hiding under the coffee table in sympathy.

But he totally missed because Perseus had forgot to allow for the fact that a mirror image is reversed, and he had swung in entirely the wrong direction.

‘Hold it right there,’ called an authoritative voice from the cave entrance.

Perseus froze. Not into stone, but he did as he was told.

‘I’m kind of busy right now cutting the head off a Gorgon,’ he told the newcomer.

‘No, you are not,’ said the man. ‘I am Ranger Pete from the Department of National Parks, and it is illegal to kill a native animal without a permit.’

‘A Gorgon is not a native animal,’ said Perseus. ‘It’s a monster.’

‘I personally prefer the pronoun she,’ said the Gorgon. ‘She’s a monster.’

‘That’s as may be,’ said Ranger Pete. ‘But it’s illegal to kill a snake. And if you cut her head off, all the snakes on her head will suffer.’

The snakes hissed their agreement with this too.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Perseus.

‘It’s illegal to carry a knife in public as well,’ said the ranger. ‘How old are you anyway? It’s doubly illegal if you’re under eighteen. Come on, I’m taking you down to the police station.’

‘But the Gorgon,’ pleaded Perseus. ‘I’ve sailed all the way here to kill her.’

‘You should just stop talking,’ said the ranger. ‘You’re only making it worse for yourself. Now I know it was pre-meditated animal cruelty you’ve been planning for some time.’

And so Medusa was able to live in peace.

‘She must have been so lonely,’ said Samantha.

‘Not at all,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Eventually, she met a very nice blind reptile lover and they lived happily ever after, the end. Time for bed.’

‘What happened to Perseus?’ asked Michael.

‘He was fine too,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘After he got out of jail for breaking so many wildlife regulations and knife laws, he went back to the royal palace and presented Medusa’s head.’

‘But he didn’t have it,’ said Michael.

‘Not the real head, no,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘But he made a copy of Medusa’s head out of papier-mâché and lolly snakes. The king loved eating lolly snakes, and as he grabbed up the head and started scoffing them, Perseus was able to sneak away with his mother and they lived happily ever after – or at least until he got into his next dreadful pickle. As all heroes do in the ancient Greek story days.

‘I don’t think that’s the version my teacher has heard of,’ said Samantha.

‘No, the problem is, the story was originally written down by Perseus and he edited it to make himself look better,’ said Nanny Piggins. ‘Never trust an editor, children. But don’t worry, if your teacher gives you a bad mark, I can ring cousin Medusa and get her to drop by his classroom if you like.’

The end.

Bedtime

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

R A Spratt is a bestselling author, television writer and podcast host. She is known for the Shockingly Good Stories,  ‘Friday Barnes’, ‘The Peski Kids’ and ‘Nanny Piggins’ series of books.

She has also written for dozens of different television shows.  In recent years she has specialised mainly in children’s animation, but she has also had extensive experience writing jokes, sketch comedy and political satire.

R A Spratt lives in Bowral, Australia with her husband and two daughters. She enjoys gardening and napping, but rarely gets the time to do either. She is currently obsessed with CrossFit and espaliering fruit trees.

She has three chickens, two goldfish, and a desperately needy dog.

Visit R A Spratt’s website

The post Bedtime Stories with R A Spratt first appeared on Good Reading.

ABOUT THE BOOK 

Germany, 1933. Anna Winter returns home to find a note from her father, warning her of grave danger. She flees overnight, taking her precious doll collection with her, and sets sail for Australia. She lands a job at the Birdum Hotel and carves a new life, hiding her past from the world – until a chance encounter with an eccentric stranger, Alter Mayseh, changes everything.

Australia, 1938. A Yiddish poet fleeing persecution, Alter has seen the writing on the wall for his people. Armed with a letter of introduction from Albert Einstein, he manages his own escape from Europe and arrives in Australia in search of a safe place to call home. When fate leads him to Anna, he’s convinced he’s found his future with her. But a disturbing clue to her dark past threatens to unravel the delicate life she has built on top of the secrets left behind.

Shifting in time and place, Doll’s Eye weaves an intriguing story of love, loss and survival against a backdrop of war and displacement. Evocative and compelling, it brings into question the gap between what we see, and what we don’t.

Q&A WITH LEAH KAMINSKY 

What inspired your novel? 
Several years ago I was visiting my writer friend, Alice Nelson, who was living in a small village in the south of France. Alice took me to a local doll museum, where an elderly woman sat outside the entrance selling tickets. It had once been her family home, but she had to move out when her doll collection became too large. As I wandered through the rooms, all packed with vintage toy trains, teddy bears and puppets, I passed a room that had been cordoned off. I stood in the doorway looking in at hundreds of old dolls, of all shapes and sizes, seated in a semi-circle facing me. I could almost hear them whispering about their pasts, and tears rolled down my cheeks as I imagined the love that must have been poured into them before they were abandoned. I began to wonder what might have happened to the children who had once adored them – spending so many hours playing with them – that I could almost hear their whispers, imploring me to write their stories. That encounter led me on a pathway to learn everything I could about the history and psychology of dolls, and the novel grew out of this. 

Can you tell us about the relationship between Anna and Alter? 
At its core, Doll’s Eye is a love story between two disparate refugees, fleeing Europe on the brink of war. Anna is a young German woman, growing up surrounded by the rise of Nazism. Alter Mayseh is a Yiddish poet who has seen the writing on the wall for his fellow Jews. They are both trying to find a new home and sense of belonging, as far away from the racism and hatred they have witnessed. At first, it seems like they are outwardly different – Anna is intent on disappearing, focusing mainly on the past, whereas Alter has his eyes fixed on the horizon, determined to move forward into the future. It really is a case of ‘opposites attract’.  

Were there any personal experiences or real-life events that influenced your story? 
In several of my books, I explore the morality of scientists and doctors. History has shown that many have been at the forefront of evil regimes. Being a physician myself, I feel an obligation to examine where someone who has taken an oath to ‘first, do no harm’ can potentially go wrong. It’s often those first, almost imperceptible choices that lead to the slippery slope towards despicable deeds. Doctors and scientists have played a major role in regimes that have perpetrated atrocities. As a doctor it is my moral duty to question what leads some in my profession to compromise their morality. In Doll’s Eye I have created a nascent Nazi ring, lead by a professor of ophthalmology, who support Hitler while he is incarcerated in the rather cushy Landsberg gaol during the late 1920s. It was there that he wrote his venomous tome, Mein Kampf.  

What’s the significance of the dolls in your story? 
When she was seven years old, my protagonist Anna was given a special doll – Lalka – by her dying mother, which she brought with her to Australia when she fled Germany in 1933. Dolls have provided comfort for children for thousands of years. They are ‘transitional objects’ that offer security at an early age. Children spend hours playing with their dolls, imbuing them with personalities and little souls. Dolls help us learn to navigate the world. I have always been interested in what is behind the veneer of things, the messiness that lies beneath the surface. Our public visage often hides our true essence and the image we present can moulded and doll-like. People can behave like puppets, especially during times of war, following political regimes unthinkingly. Throughout history, dolls have also been used by adults for nefarious activities such as espionage or the relaying of secret messages. The Nazi regime used dolls to hide secret microphotographs which were smuggled into Germany. I draw on all this to explore the world of dolls in the book.  

Your novel is set in Birdum – what kind of research did you undertake to capture this place? 
In between two pandemic lockdowns in Melbourne back in 2021, I found myself impulsively booking a flight to Darwin to join Professor Ghil’ad Zuckermann, an expert linguist, and Alice Nelson, a dear writer friend, on a road trip into the heart of the outback. We were honoured to receive a Welcome to Country by Yangman elders, one of whom offered to accompany us all the way from Mataranka to Birdum – now a ghost town 500 kilometres south of Darwin. This extraordinary landscape and country captured both my heart and imagination. We stayed at the Larrimah hotel, in the same building that had been moved from Birdum in 1952. Birdum is highlighted on old world globes and maps – from the late 1920s it was the final terminus of the North Australian Railway line, originally planned to run from Darwin all the way to Adelaide. But now, only the rusty old railway tracks and towering water tank remain as a memorial to this once bustling small town. In its heyday it was visited by station owners, soldiers, Russian peanut farmers and merchants from miles around, but now it is overrun with scrub. I also visited places like Elsie Springs where one chapter is set.

In Katherine I learned about a group of aristocratic Russian emigres – expert Cossack horsemen – fleeing the revolution back home. Many present-day residents of the town are direct descendants from this group of early immigrants. The Katherine Museum even houses a planetarium built from sardine cans, on the back of a truck, by Germogen Sergeef. He was frightened to eat fresh food in case Russian spies were attempting to kidnap or poison him. Travelling across country with our First Nations escort, highlighted how little has been written about the suffering and prejudice to which Traditional Owners of this land have been subjected over time. Considered terra nullius by white settlers, the parallel genocide occurring on this soil was neither seen nor acknowledged. I felt morally compelled to address this in the novel.  

Your novel looks at the disconnect between how we see ourselves versus how others see us. What compelled you to explore this in your story?   
The doll’s eye reflex is used by doctors to determine whether someone is conscious or not. I was interested in exploring whether we are really seeing what we are looking at – what is behind a person’s façade and who they really are, as opposed to the persona they present to the world. Often we face the world like dolls acting a role, especially in this era of social media, where image is perceived as all important. This can compromise our true selves. We all hold secrets, everyone in the book has their own secrets to hide. Doll’s Eye is about the secrets we keep and the unforeseen consequences of them being discovered. 

In what ways has your own connection to the impacts of war shaped your writing overall?   
My mother was a Holocaust survivor, her entire family murdered in the death camps. She came to Sydney on a refugee passport in 1949. My father fled Europe in 1938, smuggled out by my grandfather who spent the war years hiding his family and other children in the forests surrounding their home town. Most of the branches of my family tree have been blackened as the result of war and persecution. Thematically this has had a big influence on my writing, and I feel a moral obligation to reflect on and remember this horrific point of time in history. It galvanises me to speak out against prejudice and racial hatred in my work. I have explored the impact of transgenerational trauma in my previous novels and, unsurprisingly, this subject seems to seep into much of my writing. 

What do you hope readers take away from your story? 
At its essence this is a love story, but it is also a call against racism, for preserving language as the glue of culture, as well as a cry against the cannibalisation of small languages. It implores us to respect and acknowledge the ‘other’ and highlights the fragility of our own comfortable and peaceful lives, that can at any moment be ripped from us. This book itself is testing the reader’s own doll’s eye reflex, to see if they are conscious of their own actions and prejudices.   

Visit Leah Kaminsky’s website

The post Author Leah Kaminsky on ‘Doll’s Eye’ first appeared on Good Reading.

ABOUT THE BOOK 

Beatrix is a loner. She has a love-hate relationship with her one friend, Ray, a hate-hate relationship with everyone else in her office and a genuine attachment to a stuffed canary named Horatio. She drinks alone far too much. Lately she’s been finding the edge of the railway platform dangerously seductive.

Her life needs to change. Then she crosses paths with an old woman who seems to be stalking her, and that’s exactly what happens. Eighty-something Fred is smart, earthy, funny and not the harmless elderly lady she appears to be. She is, in fact, quite literally something else. But what?

When something happens to Ray, Fred decides to reveal herself. And Beatrix realises she has some agonising choices to make.

Beatrix & Fred is an off-kilter love story wrapped in a satisfying layer of moral complexity and tied up with a ribbon of sheer fun. Warm, witty, more than slightly weird – it takes the age-old question of what it is to be human beyond humanity itself.

MEET THE AUTHOR

What was the inspiration behind your book Beatrix & Fred?
There were so many things that fed into this book. A germ of this story has been kicking around in my head for the last 15 years. Which would make you assume I knew what I was doing when I started writing it – but I really didn’t. Beatrix & Fred was written, mostly, in a dark cold little room in Melbourne in between work, home-schooling and a general feeling of unreality – while the city lost it collective mind around me. It was a time defined by a virus that emerged and spread because of human population expansion and behaviour. Yet this virus, forcing us to retreat, also exposed our animal vulnerability. Against this backdrop, with a lot of research, my own experience of perimenopause and a brain that felt like it might never slow down, my thoughts kept coming back to us – humans, what are we, really?

I think the book became a way to peer at us, to play with what we know and what we think we know, to explore the interactions of the body and mind and, perhaps, as a way back to acknowledging our animal selves. That said, I think we humans have a tendency to laugh into the dark and there’s certainly an element of Beatrix & Fred that is me doing just that.

How did the process of writing this book compare to that of your debut A Million Things?
I’ve heard it said that writing books is like having children in that each is unique. You create one, you think, yep, OK, I get this. I can do it. And then the next one is nothing like the first.

I can now say that this is a fairly accurate description. Beatrix & Fred It is such a different book to A Million Things and this tortured me. I wasn’t interested in writing another A-Million-Things-esque book – I’d done that. But this was so different. Certainly A Million Things was in some ways an unusual novel, but this was something else. The writing journey to bring the reader with me, to make this world feel real and reasonable was a genuine test of my self-belief. I cried over it more than once. There were days the self-doubt was debilitating. It was a difficult second book-child that really made me work for it in a way that was very different to my first. But I got there in the end – and knowing the agony that went into writing it somehow makes me love it more.

The unlikely friendship between Beatrix and Fred is central to this story. How did you go about developing it?
Honestly, they developed themselves. I had an idea of who they were, Fred was a lot more menacing, more predatory – Beatrix was, well, Beatrix. Fred for a while at the start was male, and she didn’t have her own ‘voice’ in the manuscript for quite some time. But they wouldn’t let me write it like that. Fred is the most human, kind person – sure she’s also a predator and a little creepy but really, she’s curious, loving and joyful. She loves people, she delights in them – even as she uses them, perhaps especially as she uses them – and she saw something in Beatrix that was beyond a ‘chosen victim’ or depressed jerk. She saw something beautiful and kind and thoughtful in her too, something soft, and delicate. Her interactions with Beatrix helped show me that too. Their friendship developed the way that it did quite organically – it just didn’t work any other way. It’s a bonkers love story on so many levels and in writing it, I fell in love with them too. This book really put me through the wringer as a writer; it was their strange and beautiful relationship that kept me going.

What do you hope readers will take away from Beatrix’s battle with depression?
Beatrix’s battle with depression is intricately connected to her hormonal state. The possible effects of perimenopause on the body, brain and mental health are woefully misunderstood in our society and I think Beatrix’s experience certainly mirrors that. So one thing I hope that readers take is some knowledge of that.

More broadly, I suppose I hope readers take an inner and outer view of her depression. I suppose I hope that it offers a gentle suggestion that small steps can be enough. That small changes can accumulate into something. And for those on the outside, perhaps an understanding that even when it doesn’t look like it, there’s someone fighting in there, fighting to find some sort of equilibrium.

Beatrix & Fred unfolds through multiple perspectives – was there a particular character’s perspective that you found more challenging or enjoyable to write from?
Fred was an utter delight. The more I wrote her the more I loved her. Beatrix was probably more difficult as most of her perspective is written in third person and that was a departure from the style used in my first book. That said, once I had the ending settled and I was clear in my mind where her perspective was coming from, writing her became a smoother experience. I didn’t find her depression problematic to write, nor her anger and frustration. Writing her was a bit of a release, really. I had a lot of fun with Beatrix, she’s a prickly delight and the more I slipped into her the more I loved her. Even though the writing of this book at times tortured me the characters were not part of the torture. Quite the opposite. I love them fiercely.

Beatrix is a loner and finds companionship from a stuffed canary – do you have a personal connection to taxidermy?
I do not. Though, for this book, I certainly spent many more hours watching detailed how-to taxidermy videos – and researching carpet beetles, moths and dermestid beetles – than any non-taxidermist should. I do find the compulsion to collect, stuff and display the removed skins of animals fascinating, in terms of what it says about us as a species, but I’ve never had (or wanted) a taxidermy mount of my own.

Your novel steps into the realm of speculative-fiction – did you draw inspiration from any authors or books?
No. honestly, I wish I’d found something to guide me, it probably would have made the process less fraught. I worked really hard to try and bring the reader on this journey. It’s a strange story that’s firmly grounded in reality, despite its oddness. Likely or not, I like to think it’s certainly possible.

I suppose in moments of doubt, I took comfort in the fact the there is a long history of love and suspension of disbelief for the literary ‘super genre’ that is speculative fiction. Really, it can be anything and that was quite freeing.

As a young adult I read a lot of Neil Gaiman, Charles de Lint and Margret Atwood, and I love the work of Ruth Ozeki, Rumaan Alam and Louise Erdrich. These authors weren’t front of mind while writing but their existence was certainly an antidote to the ‘can this be done?’ voice in the back of my head. They showed that it can be done, I just needed to find the way that worked for me.

What do you hope readers take away from your novel overall?
My big question when writing Beatrix & Fred was ‘what is human?’ And I certainly hope reading the book opens space for contemplation of that. Beatrix & Fred is warm, darkly fun and a little bit weird, it deals with the choices we make and the people we love and I hope readers take something contemplative and joyful from it.

Visit Emily Spurr’s website

The post Author Emily Spurr on ‘Beatrix & Fred’ first appeared on Good Reading.

Clinical nutritionist Sarah Di Lorenzo offers a wholistic approach to bringing food back to basics, with easy, budget-friendly, and delicious recipes that will make cooking for the family a breeze!

There are new brand-new recipes with fewer ingredients and steps, along with Sarah’s tips on making everything from scratch, sticking to a budget, cooking with pantry staples and using leftovers.

To tempt you here’s a super simple delicious recipe for Lemon Chicken that we love.

LEMON CHICKEN

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Di Lorenzo is resident clinical nutritionist on the Seven Network’s Sunrise and Weekend Sunrise and the bestselling author of four books. Her trilogy of books – The 10:10 Diet, The 10:10 Diet Recipe Book, The 10:10 Kickstart and The 10:10 Simple Recipe Book. They have sold over 100,000 copies since 2022, making her one of Australia’s top-selling authors.

Outside of her television and publishing roles, she runs a private clinic in Woollahra, Sydney, Australia, where she treats and consults on all aspects of nutrition from weight loss to chronic disease.

Visit Sarah Di Lorenzo’s website

The post Lemon Chicken & The 10:10 Simple Recipe Book first appeared on Good Reading.

Words. What wonderful things they are. They enable us to communicate, to explain, to teach, to express emotions.

I am fascinated by words and I love to learn a new word and understand its meaning. I’ve recently added propinquity to my vocabulary. Macquarie Dictionary tells me it means: noun 1. nearness in place; proximity. 2. nearness of relation; kinship. 3. affinity of nature; similarity. 4. nearness in time. Can’t say I will be using this word though. Firstly, I find it very hard to say. I’ve had to practise. Secondly, I don’t like its sound. Thirdly, it’s not likely I will easily find a place in a sentence to use it, so I’ll never remember it!

Did you know that a Winklepicker is a type of shoe or boot with long, narrow, very pointed toes? How about that the verb of argy-bargy is argle-bargle? That’s a fun one. Crapulous means suffering from or due to such excess.

It also always amazes me that words sound like their meaning. Wonderous, ethereal, mellifluous. I love to say these words out loud. Or on the flip side glutinous, nauseous or acute. One of my least favourite words is phlegm. Ugh, it makes me instantly try and block all imagery in my mind. Hoik gives me the same feeling! Is it just that I know the meaning of these words so well, that it is so ingrained, that I feel the meaning of the word as I speak it?

How about this word. Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. My goodness. Macquarie Dictionary tells me it is an invented word modelled on polysyllabic medical terms and means a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine sand and ash (from a volcano) possibly coined by Everett M Smith who was president of the US National Puzzlers’ League in 1935. Phew!

I remember learning the meaning of the word petrichor. The smell of the earth after rain falls on dry soil. After I knew the meaning of this word I would always try and find a way to include it in a sentence.

I’m lucky to have learned English as a child. I can’t imagine having to learn it as a second language. Rules can be broken which makes it confusing. Like i comes before e, but not all the time. No, not when it comes after c.

Gardyloo

People in medieval Scotland used this word to warn passers-by of waste, including urine and slops, about to be thrown from a window into the street below. The term was apparently still in use as late as the 1930s and 1940s, when many people had no indoor toilets.

Language changes at such a speed. It is ever evolving, shedding words from the common used language and adding new ones. We just make it all up as we go along. That’s what also makes it so interesting. Omnishambles means a situation that has been completely mismanaged with disastrous consequences, which was added in 2009 when coined by the writers of the British television series ‘The Thick of It’. Macquarie Dictionary lists words that interest them but are yet to be officially added. Rizz meaning charisma. Protopia, meaning progression towards a better society, one small step at a time. That’s a word maybe we should all try and use. I really like the word beach spreading. It is the use of a cobana, tent or other item to take up space on a beach. Or funcle. An uncle who is viewed as a source of amusement and entertainment by his nieces and nephews. I always tried hard to be a funty! There you go, I made my own new word! Another in Macquarie Dictionary is desk bombing. This relates to an open plan office and is approaching someone at their desk unannounced. It dismays me that this might be seen as a bad thing. What have we come to that we might have to make an appointment to talk to someone at their desk?

There are some words I always find hard to spell. Often these words are ones I use quite a lot but, for some reason, I struggle with them. These include particularly, ingredients and, somewhat ironically, vocabulary. Apparently the most misspelled words include separate, calendar and unnecessary.

Although many countries have English as their main language many words are spelt differently. Mum/mom, traveller/traveler, centre/center, theatre/theater. This quite does my head in. I am no fan of American English and am a great supporter of always importing the UK or commonwealth edition of books just to keep younger readers reading the British English. I know this is probably a lost cause.

I’m sure you have one or more favourite words that you like to use too. We should always be aware of how words can make another person feel. Just a single word can make us feel loved, mad, joyful, sad, empathetic, scared, in fact any emotion. I always think too that we should not overuse words otherwise they lose their umph. I always think of this when I hear people using the ‘f’ word constantly in sentences. When used in every sentence it’s just losing its power. But that’s for another conversation.

Wishing you all much lectio materiales!

Rowena

The post From the Editor’s Desk in September 2023 first appeared on Good Reading.

From a young age, author Wendy Holden was fascinated with the royal family. And it’s no wonder. The excessive displays of wealth, power, scandals, and dysfunction would captivate even the most indifferent of us.

‘The Windsors are often called a soap opera, but I think they’re far more than that. They are grand drama, on a huge scale, with colossal characters,’ says Wendy.

While Wendy has had a long and successful writing career, it wasn’t until 2020 that she decided to pursue this passion and make the leap into writing historical fiction with her novel The Governess. This marked the first in her now beloved ‘The Windsor Women’ trilogy, which includes The Governess, The Duchess, and now The Princess.

‘Together [they] shine a bright and a very revealing light on the murky inner workings of the British Royal Family in the 20th century,’ she says.

Wendy shared what drew her to these women and compelled her to share their stories. ‘With all my “Windsor Women” I’ve been interested in the same thing. Marion Crawford, Wallis Simpson and Diana all came from backgrounds very different to the royal one they entered, and they changed the institution forever. This is especially true of Wallis and Marion, whose backgrounds were almost the opposite and neither of whom had any money. Diana may have been an aristocrat, but thanks to her parents’ divorce, her early life was extremely difficult. Perhaps of all the three she was the least prepared for what she entered into.’

The Princess is the final novel in her ‘The Windsor Women’ trilogy and perhaps tackles one of the most popular royals yet, Princess Diana. Wendy became fascinated by Diana as soon as she came onto the royal scene.

‘She was only a few years older than me when she married Prince Charles, so she was around for a large part of my life,’ she tells me.

Princess Diana was an activist, advocate, fashion icon and is undoubtedly recognised as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. Yet, much of what we know of her life is during her rise to fame and celebrity. A time where her marriage and actions were heavily scrutinised by the press, and her life up for constant conjecture.

In fact, it was exactly this that prompted Wendy to write about the princess.

‘Her trajectory was so dramatic, from innocent teenager to world-famous icon. What writer wouldn’t be interested? I also felt, as it’s a quarter of a century since her death, that she was now a proper historical figure and so deserved a historical novel.’

The Princess gives the reader an intimate look into the early life of Princess Diana, a period which is largely unknown. This fictionalisation hones into her life at boarding school, her troubled home life, to her first encounter with Charles and their ill-fated marriage.

‘I set out to tell the story of the unknown years of the world’s most famous woman. The difficulty was deciding from which and whose angle to approach it, as so many people were involved. In the end, I opted for multiple points of view, the whole framed by a single character, and I think it has worked brilliantly. I am so proud of this novel.’

Indeed, Wendy’s writing approach allows the reader to see Diana through the eyes of another party, her best friend, Sandy. In turn, the traits that the public came to love – her kindness, vulnerability and empathy – are reaffirmed. Diana is painted as a sweet but naive child who takes refuge in the pages of romance novels and is consumed with the idea of falling in love. Sadly, these idealistic notions ultimately cloud her judgement.

The Princess shows us from the outset, that the royal family are in search of a wife for Charles. Specifically, a young, impressionable and aristocratic woman like Diana. When the two finally meet, we see how their courtship is ultimately influenced and guided by forces larger than the two of them and how this sets their futures in motion.

Interestingly, while Wendy was researching for this novel, she was particularly struck by the calculated steps taken by the royals to ensure that this marriage took place.

‘From the outside, to the adoring public, her engagement to Charles seemed to breeze along, but the truth was the exact opposite. There were a couple of times when it almost didn’t happen at all,’ shares Wendy. ‘I was riveted by the amount of manipulation that went into it, by so many people, all with their own vested interests. My job was to try to imagine this vulnerable young girl with her idealistic convictions about love, caught in this pitiless machine.’

The Princess is a fascinating glimpse into a woman who was simultaneously vilified and idolised by the press and the public. In this novel Wendy achieves humanising Diana and providing insight into what ultimately shaped her into the resilient and empowered woman she was.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wendy Holden is an experienced author with two novels and thirty non-fiction books to her credit. She wrote the bestselling memoir of Uggie, the dog from The Artist and has ghosted autobiographies that chronicle the lives of extraordinary women, including the actress Goldie Hawn; a World War II spy; Frank Sinatra’s widow Barbara; and the only woman in the French Foreign Legion. She now lives in Suffolk, England, with her husband and two dogs.

Visit Wendy Holden’s website 

The post The People’s Princess with Wendy Holden first appeared on Good Reading.

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz is a new collection of eight stories featuring Sir Hereward and his sorcerous puppet Mister Fitz. Together they are travellers in a world of magic, gunpowder and adventure.

We caught up with Garth Nix to find out what he’s reading.

What are you reading now?

I’m re-reading a very old but excellent thriller by Hammond Innes, Dead and Alive, for research purposes about salvaging boats. I also just read and thoroughly enjoyed Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld, I am a sucker for books with writers as the protagonist, and romantic comedies.

If you were stranded on a desert island and you could only have five books – what would they be?

To be absolutely literal, the answer would be all non-fiction books on survival, medicine etc But in terms of enjoyment, I would go for books I love that are long and can stand multiple re-reads. With that in mind: The Lord of the Rings; The Collected Works of Shakespeare; The Norton Anthology of Poetry; a bit of a cheat with the box set of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey and Maturin novels; and the massive omnibus containing all of J P Martin’s Uncle stories illustrated by Quentin Blake.

Where is your favourite place to read?

Anywhere. But I do love a comfortable armchair in a sunny nook, or in the bath on a cold, rainy day. With a cup of tea in both cases.

Do you read one book at a time or multiple?

I usually have three or four books on the go at once. Often a mixture of fiction and non-fiction.

Do you use a bookmark or fold the corners of pages?

Neither. I just remember where I was up to (sometimes requiring a certain amount of flicking backwards and forwards until I work it out). 

What can you tell us about your latest book Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz?

This is a collection of eight previously published stories and a ninth new “gunpowder and sorcery” story for adults, featuring a knight-artillerist (Sir Hereward) the only male child born to a society of witches, and his companion, a free-willed sorcerous puppet (Mister Fitz), who is also a sorcerer. Their job is to deal with errant minor gods. Perhaps I can leave it to George R. R. Martin who kindly said: “If you haven’t met them yet, you are in for a treat. They are the best partnership in the world of fantasy since Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.”

What are some of your favourite stories in this collection?

I like them all! I guess I have a particular fondness for the first one, “Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go To War Again” because it was the first story, where I came up with the two characters.

What was the inspiration behind your characters Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz?

They are definitely an homage to Fritz Leiber’s stories of the barbarian swordsman Fafhrd and his thief companion, the Gray Mouser; but also, as with Leiber’s duo, owe something to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; and the sword and sorcery setting (updated in my case with gunpowder as well) is very much in the tradition of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, and other authors like L. Sprague De Camp and Michael Moorcock.

What book character would you be, and why?

There are many book characters I would like to be, but am not at all like. I would love to be Gandalf (in a peaceable time); or a wizard of Earthsea; or a retired knight who has done much derring-do but doesn’t have to fight any more; or a very rich Regency gentleman with many eccentric hobbies and a penchant for arranging romances for my relatives.

If you could meet one author (living or dead) – who would it be and why?

I’ve been writing for a long time, worked in publishing for many years, my wife is a publisher, and I am still a minority shareholder in a literary agency, so I have met many, many authors and have many authors as friends and acquaintances. I’ve met a number of my heroes, like Diana Wynne Jones and Susan Cooper (wonderful encounters, the person who said never meet your heroes had bad luck or bad judgment). I’d be interested in meeting almost any author whose work I love but I haven’t had the chance to meet, though if they are dead I would like them to be fully resurrected and not shambling zombies intent on rending my flesh.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Garth Nix has been a full-time writer since 2001, but has also worked as a literary agent, marketing consultant, book editor, book publicist, book sales representative, bookseller, and as a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve.

Garth’s books include the Old Kingdom fantasy series: Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen, Clariel, Goldenhand and Terciel and Elinor; SF novels Shade’s Children and A Confusion of Princes; fantasy novels Angel Mage and The Left-Handed Booksellers of London; and a Regency romance with magic, Newt’s Emerald. His novels for children include The Ragwitch; the six books of The Seventh Tower sequence; The Keys to the Kingdom series and Frogkisser! His short fiction includes more than 60 published stories, some of them collected in Across the Wall and To Hold the Bridge.

He has co-written several books with Sean Williams, including the Troubletwisters series; Spirit Animals Book Three: Blood Ties; Have Sword, Will Travel; and Let Sleeping Dragons Lie.

More than six million copies of Garth’s books have been sold around the world, they have appeared on the bestseller lists of The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, The Bookseller and others, and his work has been translated into 42 languages. He has won multiple Aurealis Awards, the Ditmar Award, the Mythopoeic Award, CBCA Honour Book, and has been shortlisted for the Locus Awards, the Shirley Jackson Award and others.

Visit Garth Nix’s website

The post Garth Nix on his Debut Adult Novel first appeared on Good Reading.

Her latest novel, Sleepless in Stringybark Bay returns to the same world as her other novels. It’s a page-turning mystery filled with vibrant characters and settings. AKINA HANSEN writes.

Former journalist-turned-author, Susan Duncan, alternates her time between boats on Pittwater and raising cattle at Wherrol Flat with her husband, Bob. Life on a farm is hard work. So, naturally, Susan shares that she and Bob began discussing what life might look like for them in retirement.

‘After 13 years of dealing with droughts, bushfires, floods, wild dogs killing our newborn calves, our own dogs being bitten by snakes (Bob said it would be cheaper if I was bitten next time), two tractor accidents (two broken discs) and every other little curve ball rural life throws at you, it seemed wise to explore options,’ she tells me.

‘Then I met a group of people who’d pooled their resources to live their dream. What a great idea, I thought.’

Indeed, it was this idea that acted as the catalyst for Susan’s latest novel Sleepless in Stringybark Bay, which follows five elderly couples who pool their resources to live in a house in an offshore community.

If you’re a fan of Susan’s previous novels – The Briny Café and its follow-up Gone Fishing – you’ll be happy to learn that we return to the same world of Cook’s Basin. But this time, the small and tight-knit community of Cook’s Basin are in for a shock.

While initially the community welcomes the elderly group with open arms, when a member of the household is found dead and the circumstances surrounding it are puzzling, suspicions are raised.

‘Everything I write is drawn from my life but twisted, embellished, redrawn and thrown into a melting pot until it comes out completely re-shaped,’ shares Susan.

Interestingly, the setting of Cook’s Basin was inspired by Pittwater where she spent time ‘just watching seasons change, light on water, listening to the sound of birds, eavesdropping on conversations on the ferry, [and] talking to the larrikins that make up the community.’

Described as a boat lovers paradise, it’s located about 40 kilometres north of Sydney in New South Wales, and it’s a tidal estuary that is often considered to be a bay or harbour.

‘My heart will always belong to the offshore community of Pittwater which translates into the quirky, fictional Cook’s Basin. The off-beat location allows for off-beat characters who have a unique way of seeing the world but are always well meaning and good-hearted. Inevitably, that sometimes leads to disaster,’ Susan says.

When the five elderly couples arrive in Cook’s Basin, we quickly learn that this adventure has been a long thought-out dream. The funny and eccentric bunch who refer to themselves as ‘GeriEcstacy’ are lifelong friends who went to university together and some even married each other.

Sometimes a throwaway line in a casual conversation will ignite an idea for a character. Sometimes, I go back in family history to build layers to a person.

Despite this, we learn early on that they are a varied group of individuals. There’s Rob and Daisy who are former cattle farmers, Brian and Cameron who are former antique dealers, stiletto-wearing Sheila and her partner, Gavin, who were in the retail shoe business, former cheesemakers Sally and David, and finally Mike and his partner, Donna, who is a retired actress with a terrible attitude.

Susan shares that when it comes to her characters, they are an amalgamation of her many and varied observations and interactions with people – anyone she sees or meets at a shopping centre to a cattle yard sale can inspire her.

‘Sometimes a throwaway line in a casual conversation will ignite an idea for a character. Sometimes, I go back in family history to build layers to a person.’

Even smaller characters, such as Cliffy, who features in the novel, has been inspired by someone real. ‘[He] is a dead ringer for my fabulous 96-year-old Uncle Frank, although he once farmed peaches, not dairy cows. I’m not sure this makes sense, but there is a part of me in all of them.

‘Exaggerated little niches locked away in my psyche. I hope that doesn’t make me sound nutty,’ Susan says.

As the story progresses, we begin to notice certain tensions within the group. And when former journalist-turned-café owner Kate Jackson begins to look into the retirees, a thrilling and page-turning mystery unfolds.

Interestingly, Susan’s own work as a former journalist – she had a long and successful career in radio, newspaper and magazine journalism – helped her prepare and shape this novel, and even some of its characters.

‘In years of researching the backgrounds of people I was about to interview, it was almost always a throwaway line in an earlier interview that opened a window into ferreting out a strong angle. And, of course, I have spent many hours in newspaper libraries going through old files. As for Kate? I have deliberately made her a financial journalist instead of a women’s magazine feature writer but there are similarities,’ she says.

Susan does an excellent job at creating a tense atmosphere through the setting of the bay. The elderly household is isolated and locked away on an island that is only accessible by boat. As Kate begins to question why such an elderly group of individuals would choose to move to such an inaccessible and remote area, I found myself beginning to question if there was something more sinister going on as well.

Sleepless in Stringybark Bay is a charming novel filled with vibrant characters and a beautiful setting that highlights the importance of community and environment. And even more importantly, ‘How even the smallest acts of kindness can lead to wonderful outcomes. How people who don’t fit the norm (whatever that might be) have much to offer and should be celebrated.’

Susan is currently working on the final novel in the series. ‘I will be sad to say goodbye to the characters, but I am not sure I can entirely let go of the bush, boats and the landscape that I love with such a passion.’

Read an extract from the book

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Susan Duncan enjoyed a 25-year career spanning radio, newspaper and magazine journalism, including editing two of Australia’s top selling women’s magazines, The Australian Women’s Weekly and New Idea. Susan has published two bestselling memoirs, Salvation Creek and its sequel, The House at Salvation Creek, and two novels, The Briny Café and Gone Fishing.

The post Returning to Cook’s Basin with Susan Duncan first appeared on Good Reading.

In his 2021 New York Times opinion piece, Farhad Manjoo wrote, ‘Listening to a book is not only just as good as reading it. Sometimes, perhaps even often, it’s better.’ In an age where technology has transformed how we access information and entertainment, it is only natural for readers to discuss whether audiobooks have benefited consumers or if it has detracted them from the true reading experience.

Any book at its core is about storytelling. Something humans have done since we were first able to communicate. According to National Geographic, physical storytelling can be traced back 30000 years through the form of cave drawings. There is little doubt though, that humans were sharing stories for many thousands of years before this. On home soil, First Nation Australians have an incredible oral tradition that has seen their culture survive for over 60000 years. Storytelling, particularly oral storytelling, is in every human’s DNA, so what better way to share stories than through audiobooks. It is time to dispel the misapprehensions around audiobooks and embrace their value as a means to share human experiences.

It must be said that, above all else, the ability to expand the industry’s reach and to harbour a more inclusive culture in our literary community is argument enough for the celebration of audiobooks. For those who love storytelling and books, but have difficulties accessing reading because of impairments or disabilities, audiobooks provide a stepping stone into the world of literature. A world that we would all dearly like to share with as many people as possible.

Moreover, we should treat audiobooks as their own art form. With compelling narration by voice actors, audiobooks enable readers to have an immersive experience. The pacing, pitch, accent, and modulation of the narrator seeks to bring the setting, characters, and plot to life.

Memoir and autobiography are especially extraordinary when read by the authors themselves. Spare by Prince Harry for example, or Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey, provide readers with an intimate connection with the author. But it doesn’t just apply to non-fiction books. The artistry of readers like Stephen Fry presenting the classic Harry Potter series, together with theme music by James Hannigan, provides the consumer with an even richer experience of the text.

Personally, I often have two books on the go at once. One in hard copy and the other while I’m driving or walking my dog. I consider this as consuming two books, regardless of whether I have physically held the book. In fact, a number of years ago I was in a book club but didn’t have time to read the novels in the traditional sense. I had to squeeze the books in while driving or performing some mind-numbing task. I was still able to have insightful discussions at the book club; discussions surrounding plot, motif, characterisation, setting, and themes. At no point did I feel lost in the conversation about the novel.

We shouldn’t be resistant to what audiobooks provide. For writers, your storytelling is reaching even more people. For readers, you are being provided with more avenues to consume literature. For publishers, the revenue is still streaming in. While the arguments from traditionalists may continue, audiobooks are here to stay. In fact, in a rapidly evolving world, audiobooks may just be the thing that helps the book industry thrive and survive.

The post Play it by Ear with Samuel Bernard first appeared on Good Reading.

HEATHER MORRIS is a multimillion-copy bestselling author whose novels include ‘The Tatooist of Auschwitz’ series. Her latest novel Sisters Under the Rising Sun is a story of women and war. Good Reading caught up with Heather to discuss her new novel.

Your book is based on a true story – how did you first learn about this story?
I was starting to think about ideas for my next book. I wanted to remain in the same period of history, but was keen to explore another theatre of war, particularly from the perspective of the women and, because of my own background, I was drawn to explore the experiences of our nurses, who have largely gone unrecognised. When I discussed this with my London publisher, Kate Parkin, she talked about the Australian nurses who had been held captive by the Japanese Army in the Indonesian jungles during World War II. I then discovered that one of my colleagues at the Monash Medical Centre had a cousin who was one of those nurses.

I knew then that I had what I look for in all my novels: a personal connection to the story. The more I read about these remarkable women, the more obvious it became that I could not tell their story without including the story of Norah Chambers and the other English women who were imprisoned with the nurses. The two stories were intrinsically entwined.

The book focuses on Norah, Nesta and Vivian – how did you go about reimagining these real women? And what drew you to them?
Knowing someone who could tell me about Nesta from a personal perspective was of incredible importance in reimagining her. One aspect about Nesta stayed with me: her love of laughter. In their testimonies, both her family and many other survivors refer to her finding humour in any circumstance. That she was only 4 foot 10 inches tall, described as a pocket dynamo, created a wonderful visual for me in writing about her standing up to the incredible circumstances in which she found herself.

Vivian’s survival of the massacre on Radji Beach has been well documented, both in her own autobiography and in written and visual testimonies about her. I tried to picture this strong country woman for whom nothing was too much trouble; her courage and dedication to her profession were unshakeable. I needed to include her, but I strongly recommend readers seek out her biography – which covers her life after WW2 – and learn more about this truly amazing Australian woman.

I saw Norah as a somewhat privileged English woman with a brilliant musical ability, who used her skills and talent to make a difference to the morale of the camp internees. It was only when I got to meet her daughter and grandson on the island of Jersey that I heard about the loving, caring attributes she had been known for her whole life. I used the descriptions given to me by her family to create the woman you will read about.

The sisterhood of the women is a central part of the book. How did you approach writing about female friendship in a historical context?
Growing up in rural New Zealand only one generation removed from Norah, Nesta and the others, witnessing and remembering the community of farmers’ wives to which my own mother belonged helped me write about the bond of females of the time. The many testimonies and books I read about the survivors, most written many decades ago when memories were fresh, provided incredible insights into the behaviour of those women. Yes, they had their quarrels and disagreements, but they always seemed to get over them and come together for the common good.

In comparing their survival with that of the men under the same circumstances, it became obvious that one of the main differences was the refusal by the women to allow a hierarchy to dominate. Yes, they had their spokeswomen for each nationality, but there was very little argument about one group of women being superior or not doing their fair share of the work. When someone did do more than their neighbour, there seemed to be no resentment about this.

You spoke to the families of some of the survivors – can you tell us about this?
Spending time with Nesta’s family – both my ex-colleague in Australia and other family members of Nesta’s in Cardiff, Wales – was of immense value. Hearing about Nesta’s life – both growing up in Shepparton, Victoria, and after her return home – from those who knew her intimately, including her parents and her family in Wales as a young girl, gave me a window into the woman she was before she went to war, and the woman who returned. You can’t get this level of personal information from reading books, testimonies and so forth. I am so grateful to Deb, Kathleen and Brenda, who are proud to be her family.

It required the skills of a Sherlock Holmes for my researcher to discover that Norah and her family had gone to live on the island of Jersey following their return to England. Through the local church we found Sally, the eight-year-old daughter of Norah who had been placed on a ship with her aunt and two young cousins fleeing a burning Singapore a few days before her parents boarded the ill-fated Vyner Brooke. Spending time with Sally as an 87-year-old beautiful woman who never stopped smiling, and Norah’s grandson, Seán, is a memory never to be forgotten.

I returned to Jersey twice and received from Sally and Seán not only the story of Norah but also the most precious documents: music scores written by Norah 80 years ago on scrap paper in the jungles of Sumatra. To hold these precious documents was incredibly moving. I am so grateful to Sally and Seán for giving us permission to reproduce some of the many pages of music Norah wrote. Sadly, Sally died in May this year, before she got to hold a copy of her mother’s story, but not before she heard from me what I was writing.

Were you surprised by anything while researching?
Absolutely. Many of the early books and testimonies I read never mentioned the number of women in the camp – between 500 and 600 women and children. The most significant event I believe I have written about, concerns the Australian nurses being forced into being ‘comfort women’ for the Japanese officers. How this played out has for the most part been whitewashed from history, due to a pact the nurses made at the time; however, one of them, as an old woman, revealed what truly happened while still protecting the names of the nurses involved.

There is a lot more to this storyline untold. Discovering how the English women were treated on their return to England both surprised and angered me. If I had to name one aspect of this story that perplexes me, I would have to say that the fact this story of women’s survival during the Second World War has largely been ignored in the history books, particularly the Aussie nurses, is an insult to these brave women. Their names deserve to be written alongside the Australian men, both victims and survivors, who were held captive by the Japanese Army in Singapore and Malaya.

Why did you want to share this story?
I don’t go looking for stories about females only. What I look for are untold stories, or seldom-told stories. I feel an incredible injustice has occurred in not placing the Australian nurses and English women and their incredible experiences alongside the storylines –written, told, and filmed – of returning men, soldiers and civilians who were held captive by the Japanese. The women’s story is one of resilience, courage and commitment to others; a story that we can learn from.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Heather Morris was born in Te Awamutu, New Zealand, a small rural town in the middle of the North Island. I had an older brother, then three more boys followed. Her childhood was spent in the even smaller village of Pirongia with four generations of her family living within proximity of each other.

Her primary school years were spent at the local school which at that time only had a handful of classrooms. For secondary schooling she went to Te Awamutu College.

In 1971 she moved to Melbourne, Australia, to escape what she considered the claustrophobic environment of having too many extended family members around me. Soon after arriving in Melbourne she met her husband  Steve (don’t call me Stephen) Morris and they were married in 1973.

In 1975 they returned to New Zealand, living in Christchurch, South Island. Their first son was born in 1976, another son in 1980 and our daughter in 1985.

In 1996 she decided to follow my passion for storytelling and enrolled in The Professional Scriptwriting Course through the Australian College of Journalism.

She went on to attend many screenwriting courses, seminars and workshops in both Australia and the U.. Her workplace provided her with a wealth of heroic storylines, several of which she adapted into screenplays that now line the bottom drawer of her desk.

And then she met Lale Sokolov.

Visit Heather Morris’ website

The post Sisters Under the Rising Sun by Heather Morris first appeared on Good Reading.