I’m delighted to share some news — Wild Horses is now available internationally through Pilyara Press! It has a different cover from the Penguin Random House edition available in Australia and New Zealand, but it’s the same great story.
This book has always been close to my heart. When I first sat down to write it, I wanted to explore the way broken things — whether people or horses — can find healing through patience, care, and trust. At its core, Wild Horses concerns second chances. It’s about Christy, a drama teacher blindsided by scandal who seeks refuge at Currawong Creek, a horse therapy camp tucked away in the foothills of Queensland’s beautiful Bunya Mountains. It’s about Tyler, a celebrity chef desperate to reconnect with his teenage son. And it’s about Lofty, a wild ex-racehorse who learns, alongside the humans around him, that sometimes trust is worth the risk.
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This novel is also a tribute. The equine character of Lofty was inspired by a real horse of the same name — rescued from the knackery by my son Matt. The bond those two shared was extraordinary, and losing Lofty last year was heartbreaking. Writing him back into life on the page became my way of honouring his spirit. Knowing that readers around the world will meet Lofty in these pages feels wonderful. I’m sharing his memory more widely than I ever imagined possible.
One of the themes running through Wild Horses is mental health — how connection to animals, nature, and community can help us weather life’s storms. Horses, in particular, have a remarkable gift for honesty. They sense our emotions instantly, and they demand authenticity in return. You can’t fake calm with a horse; you have to find it. Spending time with them teaches patience, grounding, and trust — qualities that many of us crave in today’s fast-paced world.
When I look back at my own journey — from my years in law, to raising children on my own, to finally following my heart into writing and the bush — I see echoes of Christy’s resilience. Like her, I discovered that stepping into a new chapter can be daunting, but it can also be the very thing that saves you. So it feels especially fitting to celebrate this new beginning for Wild Horses. With the international edition, readers everywhere can now travel to Currawong Creek, breathe in the Darling Downs air, and ride alongside Christy, Tyler, Leo, and Lofty.
If you pick up this book, I hope you find in its pages a reminder that fresh starts are always possible, and that the most unexpected connections — whether with an animal or another person — can sometimes change everything.
Thank you, as always, for your support, for reading, and for sharing these stories with me.
With gratitude,
Jennifer Scoullar
Elisabeth has been an avid reader all her life. She dabbled in writing as a teenager, but gave it away to study music which has also been a lifelong passion. It is why musicians are often, but not always, her main characters. She plays clarinet in a community orchestra and loves getting back into regular practice and music making. Tai Chi is a part of Elisabeth’s life and has been since 1987. She and her husband travel a lot and she also plays tennis on a regular basis.
We lived next door to Monty, a race horse trainer, and I spent many happy hours hanging around the stables and probably annoying him. He taught me to ride and loaned me a pony called Midge, short for Midget, who I rode bareback everywhere. Later, as a teenager, I had a chestnut mare called Del, the result of a swap Dad did with Monty for a jersey cow. I’d ride her after school, and on weekends head off with a friend to explore the area or attend a pony club meet which involved our horses being floated across town. All those quiet dirt country roads we travelled on horseback, singing Beatle’s songs, laughing and gossiping about boys, are now long gone — tarred and filled with fast moving traffic.
I’m fortunate in that I’ve never been in the path of a raging fire although Canberra lost 503 homes, and four people died in the terrifying fires of January 2003. I’ll never forget the weird light, the smell, the smoke and the wind bringing charred leaves and twigs from kilometres away before the fire hit the suburbs on the far side of town from us. My suburb backs on to natural bushland and every summer we know the possibility is there.
My heroine Krista, although frightened and knowing she has to drive four horses to safety can’t leave without her little dog Lola, who has disappeared. Lola, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, has quite a role to play in the book.
overseas, my husband and I sometimes go horse riding and explore different landscapes. Here I am riding Carlos on Maui, which, on the south western coast inland behind Kaanapali is surprisingly scrubby, rocky and dry and very like parts of Australia. Carlos resembles Calypso Sun. He liked going backwards, however, and needed stern words to make him behave, whereas she would never do that.
S M (Sandy) Spencer
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).
I grew up in the northern beaches peninsular district of Sydney. It was well after horse and cart days—but was a time when, if there was a vacant block of land down the road, it was perfectly acceptable to keep your horse there. I sometimes rode my pony to school, tethered him next to the oval and rode him home again. When I was fourteen, my family moved to Victoria and we lived in a semi-rural district with a goat, a cat, two dogs and a number of horses. My teenage friend Rina (and our horses), were inseparable for many years and we showed and competed together. Rina still competes in dressage, and has had a great deal of success with thoroughbred ex-racehorses. I always look forward to visiting her property and spending time in her stables!
The natural environment has played an important part in all of my novels. It was when I was working as a legal academic and teaching in a course, ‘The International Legal Regulation of Climate Change,’ that an idea formed for 
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Today we welcome Susanne Bellamy to the blog. Born and raised in Toowoomba, Susanne is an Aussie author of rural romance set in Australia. She also writes contemporary and suspense romances set in exciting and often exotic locations. She adores travel with her husband, both at home and overseas, and weaves stories around the settings and people she encounters. Mentoring aspiring writers, and working as a freelance editor keeps Susanne off the street!
We’ve had several Shepherds, starting with Ricky (Houdini hound extraordinaire) through to our current queen of the house, Freya. Then there was Clyde, the Welsh Springer spaniel with a talent for escaping so he could go scrub-bashing through the bush at the bottom of our property. He had such flexible paws that he actually climbed the fence!
Here’s a snippet of Hughie, the poddy calf:
Today I’d like you to meet 
