Easter Sunday With Jenn J McLeod + Book Giveaway

Season Of Shadow And Light Please welcome author, friend and fellow animal nut, Jenn J McLeod, to Pilyara on this Easter Sunday. Her wonderful new novel, Season Of Shadow And Light, is coming out on May 1st. What a luminous cover! I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy and can tell you that readers are in for a real treat. Such a multi-layered, thought-provoking story about the best and worst of families, and it also features a horse! Over to you Jenn!

 

I was six the day a horse ate my buttons

‘We share so much more than a great name, Jen. For a start, we both love animals—all animals—and we hate seeing them neglected and mistreated.

If I had to pick a favourite animal it would definitely be dogs. And  I know you love dogs. But I REALLY, really, really love dogs. Every day when I wake up and my old (now blind) rescue baby is at the foot of the bed (staring and telling me to get up) I feel blessed and lucky to have her in my life, even though her vet bills are now slowly siphoning away my retirement savings!

Jenn J McLeod_54A1139 tI love dogs so much I wanted to feature one in a novel. So, the original Season of Shadow and Light plot featured a mangy mutt as the star of the story. That was until I started researching the world of animals as therapy and developed a fascination for the human/horse connection. Around the same time (coincidental or karma) I discovered a very personal horse-related project to test out a few theories—and it was almost next door to where I lived.

Looking at the final cover for Season of Shadow and Light, I hardly have to tell you that the horse theme, and not the mangy mutt, won in the end. My love of horses goes way back to when, as a young child, my Dad (a NSW Police Bandsman) would take me to the Sydney Royal Easter Show. He’d leave me in my special seat (ie in the horse float and hay stores area under the grandstand) to watch the NSW Police Band do a special performance called, The Musical Ride, in which the mounted police and the brass band would do a choreographed marching routine that weaved between the horses. When they finished several routines, the horses would return to the staging area while the band played on. It was all very thrilling—until the unthinkable happened.

One day a horse ate the buttons off my shirt! For some reason that incident traumatised me. I remember the moment as though it was yesterday—and as clearly as I remember the shirt that buttoned up at the back with little pearl buttons. After that incident, I still loved watching my Dad in The Musical Ride performance, and I still loved horses, but I couldn’t get up close to a horse any more. For years I was like a person who loves the beach but can’t be in the sun. In saying that, just as the might of the sea can still spellbind an observer, I remained awestruck by the magnificence of a horse.

I have since reconnected with horses and made a horse friend—all thanks to my research for Season of Jenn J McLeod Simmering seasonShadow and Light. Readers of Simmering Season might recall Maggie visiting an old horse that stood alone in a paddock in all weather—neglected, with no shelter, it’s blanket tatty and torn. There’s a bit of me in those scenes as it was a real horse that inspired that equine character. On my morning walk I would stop and chat to a lonely, neglected, nippy old horse being agisted on a nearby property. (Neighbourhood goss suggested the owner was not a local, nor a rider any more due to declining health.) Initially I called the horse, Ed (yes, the talking horse) and over a time (carrots helped) he let me get closer.

Jenn J Mcleod Horse 1I’d like to think that horse and I helped each other. He certainly helped me. When we sold up to hit the road in our caravan I was so sad to leave Ed behind I decided to write him into Simmering Season. As it turns out, Ed was no ordinary horse either. He was (more neighbourhood goss) once a prize-winning race horse and while his real name was Nevaeh, to me he will always be Ed. (Oh, and by the time I left the area, other locals had taken on the morning, noon and night visits and treats.)

Jenn J Mcleod Horse 2With trust and loyalty as the main theme throughout this novel I think it’s fitting that a horse be featured. Humans can learn a lot about both those qualities from horses (and from dogs). Animals put their trust in humans and I don’t think there’s anything sadder than a neglected animal. I do hope readers of Season of Shadow and Light will excuse my mini soapbox moment when I bang on about some animals being a life-long commitment, and with horses that life can be a very be long time. And look out for my tribute to Nevaeh.

With early reader reviews already in like this one “Jenn J McLeod is an author for all seasons  . . .  and all readers.” Shelleyrae, wwwbookdout.wordpress.com, I am super excited about this story of secrets and love, of family loyalty, and of trust—the kind that takes years to build but only seconds to wash away.

Cheers, Jen. I look forward to seeing you at my place soon for my #WriteRoundOz Author Series.’

Jenn J McLeod bannerI can’t wait Jenn, and thanks for dropping by today! Readers, for your chance to WIN all THREE Jenn J McLeod novels* simply leave a comment below. From now until the end of May, Jenn drops into some of her favourite author blogs to say hello to readers old and new. She’ll then collect the comment names from each author blog post, picking a lucky winner from one major draw and announcing the name at the end May of on her blog

If you’d like to find out more about Jenn and her contemporary women’s fiction about small towns keeping big secrets, head on over to her website or, like me, follow the Facebook and Twitter fun.

Website:   www.jennjmcleod.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JennJMcLeod.Author
Twitter:     @jennjmcleod
*Book Pack: House for all Seasons (#5 Top Selling Debut novel, 2013), Simmering Season, and Season of Shadow and Light. (Australian postal address only)

And now to announce the winners in my Turtle Reef prize draw! So many books to giveaway today :). Congratulations to Karla Oleinikoff and Kim Foster. I’ll email you soon for your postal address. Many thanks to all who left comments.

BB14

 

Cathryn Hein and her Road to Publication

Please welcome the inspiring Cathryn Hein, fellow Penguin author and horse nut. She shares her publication story with us, reinforcing the notion that we make our own luck. I must admit that these behind the scenes accounts of the publishing process are my absolute favourites! So … over to Cathryn.

Thanks, Jennifer, for inviting me onto your blog. I’m delighted to be here and having a lovely time catching up on your Ireland posts. What a wonderful experience! But rummaging around I also discovered the series you wrote revealing your journey to publication and that started me thinking about my own, and how far I’ve come since then. It’s funny how things come about. I used to think that my case involved a fair bit of dumb luck but, looking back, I can see that I made a good portion of that luck, or at least snatched an opportunity when it came my way.

Skip back to 2010 and I’d been writing seriously, with a view to publication, since mid 2005. I’d completed 6 (or was it 7?) full manuscripts, a couple of novellas, gawd knows how many short stories and, as is the wannabe writer’s lot, collected plenty of rejections along the way. But I’d dreamed of being a writer since I was young and I wasn’t about to stop. Plus I was getting closer, I could sense it.

In May, Karly Lane (whose book North StarI adored and Morgan’s Law is on my to-be-read pile) posted on a Romance Writers of Australia loop that she’d been contacted by an editor from Penguin Australia who’d seen one of her booktrailers and wondered if Karly had any more rural romances up her sleeve. My ears immediately pricked. An editor on the hunt for rural romance, my genre? Not a chance in hell I’d let that slide, so I emailed Karly and she kindly passed me the name of the editor.

Off went a snail mail submission to Penguin containing a rural romance that had received a bit of interest elsewhere, and for which I still harboured high hopes. A couple of months later an email bounced back saying thanks, but the book had too narrow a focus and didn’t quite fit what they were after. Armed with a better idea of what Penguin might be seeking, I shot back an email pitching Promises and asked if they’d be interested seeing it. They would. Off whooshed the synopsis and three chapters. That afternoon I had a reply from another editor, Belinda Byrne, who read it, loved it, and wanted the rest. It all sounded very promising but I’d been through this before with other manuscripts and publishers, and knew not to get my hopes up.

About a week or so after this was the Romance Writers of Australia conference where I was fortunate enough to meet and chat with Belinda about the book and my writing and I was left with a hopeful buzz of excitement. A buzz that turned electric when, one Thursday after the conference, I received a phone call from Belinda advising me she was taking Promises to Penguin’s acquisitions meeting the following Monday. I spent an entire day in disbelief, dazedly working on another manuscript, before finally realising it might be a bright idea to secure an agent. Multiple phone calls and emails later, followed by more phone calls and discussions across the weekend, I signed with Clare Forster of Curtis Brown Australia, my dream agent. Monday morning the phone rang. It was Belinda. Penguin wanted to offer on Promises. After all those years, all those words and books, all those false hopes and rejections, it had finally happened. I was to become a published author.

Now, two years later, I have two published novels and I’m close to handing in my third contracted rural romance. It’s been a learning curve, to say the least, with plenty of doubts and joys to add spice to the journey, but every moment has been worth it. My stories are on the shelves, the teenage dream reached. Luck or not it doesn’t matter. I made it.

Thank you so much Cathryn, for sharing your fascinating story with us. For those who haven’t yet read Cathryn’s latest novel. Heart of the Valley, you’re in for a real treat!

HEART OF THE VALLEY

Brooke Kingston is smart, capable and strongwilled ­ some might even say stubborn ­ and lives in the beautiful Hunter Valley on her family property. More at home on horseback than in heels, her life revolves around her beloved ‘boys’ ­ showjumpers Poddy, Oddy and Sod.

Then a tragic accident leaves Brooke a mess. Newcomer Lachie Cambridge is hired to manage the farm, and Brooke finds herself out of a job and out of luck. But she won¹t go without a fight.

What she doesn’t expect is Lachie himself ­ a handsome, gentle giant with a will to match her own. But with every day that Lachie stays, Brooke’s future on the farm is more uncertain. Will she be forced to choose between her home and the man she’s falling for?

A vivid, moving and passionate story of love and redemption from the author of Promises.

Out now from Penguin Australia.