S M (Sandy) Spencer writes romance, with just a touch of spice, set mainly in the Australian state of Victoria. She grew up reading the romantic suspense works of incredible authors such as Daphne du Maurier and Mary Stewart. Their books stirred in her a passion that would last a lifetime — a passion to write stories that would stay with readers long after they’d finished the books.

I grew up in a small Californian coastal town, dreaming about riding horses and becoming a writer. After a long career in the corporate world, one that landed me in Australia in the 1980s, I found myself in a position to realise that dream!

Now retired, I write from the semi-rural home I share with my husband, horses, cats and dogs, as well as the kangaroos that pass through the paddocks on nearly a daily basis. But it isn’t just kangaroos that visit our semi-rural property. We see echidnas,  blue-tongue lizards, rabbits, ducks, and every sort of parrot you can imagine. Recently we had a pair of Gang-Gang Cockatoos that I had to go onto the internet to identify. But the biggest surprise was the day a koala arrived in the front paddock and stayed the night! He was no doubt lost, perhaps pushed down to escape the bushfires in the nearby State Park, and by morning he was gone.

Just like my lovely hostess, Jennifer, I’m not only an animal lover, but also a keen horse-rider. I bought my first horse shortly after getting my first job at the age of sixteen, and haven’t looked back. I’ve traded California’s beaches and rolling coastal hills for country lanes and backroads, and I’ve become pretty much a fair weather rider, but my beautiful Arabian mare continues to allow me to ride her even though I’m sure she wonders why it’s always her that gets ridden (and not her two paddock partners, a retired buckskin and a rescue horse with permanent leg damage).

So, does all this make its way into my books? Short answer; sometimes. My Copperhead Creek Australian Romance series is set in a made up town called Willows, situated in Victoria’s Golden Triangle area.  Most of the books in the series feature heroines who do what I always wanted to do—move to the country to have horses, and end up finding true love.

Each book in the series can be read as a stand-alone with respect to the romance, as each has its own couple who find their happy for now ending. However, if you read them in order you’ll see characters from earlier books making appearances throughout, as the lives of the characters in the small town overlap and tangle.

A Chance To Come True

Caity Jones wasted a lot of years waiting for the “two kids, a dog and a white picket fence” dream to come true, but she’s ready to move on now. Letting go of society’s idea of the perfect life, she’s purchased a five-acre property in the small rural town of Willows. She’s determined to live a solitary life and become a writer. And that means staying away from men altogether.

Tom Murray owns and runs the local feed store in Willows. His marriage was a failure but his family is strong, and he can’t imagine a world that didn’t include his three young children. He’s an uncomplicated man, living an uncomplicated life—and he has every intention of keeping it that way.
Both are mature … both have baggage … and both have agendas that don’t include romance.
And then they meet.

Discover more about Australasian rural authors at our Australian & NZ Rural Fiction website!