Today I’d like you to meet Wendy Lee Davies, a relative newcomer to our Aussie rural fiction family. She began writing romances as a lark after leaving her communications and editing job of many years. 

Wendy won the Romance Writers of Australia Emerald Award in 2017 with her small-town contemporary romance, The Drover’s Rest. The same story (renamed Good Enough For Love prior to publication), was also a finalist in the 2017 Mid-American Romance Writer’s Fiction from the Heartland competition. So, over to you Wendy …

Landscapes are strange things I reckon. They evoke such a wide range of emotions, from deep longing all the way to abject fear. I think that’s why painters and photographers endeavour to capture them in their art. And writers do too.

My Cousin’s Farm

I’ve been roaming around Australian landscapes my entire life. One of my first memories is of piling into the family car and going for long drives into the countryside. We also visited my cousins often. They lived on a wheat and sheep farm in the northern part of Victoria, so shearing sheep, harvesting wheat and cooking over a wood stove all formed a part my growing up. It’s why my story – Good Enough For Love – is set in a fictional town right in the middle of the sheep and wheat growing area of Victoria. A landscape I know well.

From the time I was a teenager, I’ve loved bushwalking. I “discovered” this activity basically because a girlfriend demanded I join her on a walk. But I soon fell in love with it, not the least because we were always outnumbered by the guys on these great adventures – like two females (my girlfriend and me) to at least six guys. I walked the mountains and along some incredible rivers and vast, deserted beaches carrying everything we needed on our backs. And bushwalking led to cross country skiing. And then I got into cycling, especially cycle touring. (I’m about to boast, so forgive me.) I’ve ridden my bicycle from Brisbane to Sydney, from Sydney to Melbourne and from Launceston to Hobart. It is a wonderful way of immersing yourself in the landscape you are riding through. The hills, the scents, and the environment are up close and personal, I can tell you.

I love our landscapes. I adore vast mountain ranges disappearing off into the clouds. The vast forests of gum trees, where the light and shade play peek-a-boo while the scent of eucalypt permeates the air. And the rolling hills around Gippsland. Then there’s the red sand and huge vast vistas of the outback. I’ve done my best to capture it all in photographs, but it’s never as good as being there.

Being out in the ’great outdoors’ feeds my soul. Always has. Probably always will.

Iceland

Just a few weeks ago I was sitting by a bubbling river, in the middle of nowhere on the other side of the world (Iceland). I was sitting in the sun, completely alone, with snow-capped mountains in the background and no trees in sight, just enjoying the peace and solitude. (see picture left)

Then I got to thinking about all the emotions I’d experienced while travelling around this far-off land. Exhausted. Worried. Laughter. Annoyed and disgusted at my inability to do what I used to find so easy – walk up steep hills without huffing and puffing – in my younger years. Awestruck and gobsmacked by the sheer beauty before me. The sheer joy of being there capturing all this fascinating and wonderful scenery. And here I was, sitting there feeling so at ease, so at peace, that I never wanted to leave.

All that emotion… It’s not the first time I’ve felt those things. But this time I finally understood.

Landscapes are why I write small-town, country romances. The environment, the scenery, the whole landscape becomes a character, a presence that goes mostly unnoticed, but significant. It isn’t the landscape itself that makes my heroes and heroines react, but it reflects their deepest fears and their greatest joys. If done well, our Australian landscape can make any character feel insignificant, immaterial … or able to step up and overcome their own issues.

You see what I mean? Landscapes are strange. But where would we be without them?

Good Enough For Love
Moving to the country challenges everything she
knows…

When Amber Hutchinson inherits a country hotel, she plans to do it up, sell it, and move on. After all, living in the country never featured in her plans. That is until she comes across a handsome local sheep farmer.

He always tries to do the right thing…
When Zach Wentworth comes cross a gorgeous, blond-haired woman stuck in his hometown’s hotel window, trying to break in, naturally he tries to find out what’s going on.

Without the hotel, Willow’s Bend is likely to die a slow death. So, Zach does whatever he can to secure his town’s future. But doing the right thing means risking his heart. Again. Amber’s determined to make the hotel into a thriving business once more. On her own. She has little time for her growing attraction to Zach. Something she’s desperately trying to ignore because she knows it won’t last.

While the town gossips eagerly discuss every interaction between them, Amber and Zach must choose between protecting their hearts and taking a chance on love.

Get in touch with Wendy via her website, Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, Instagram and Bookbub.

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