Recently, after I returned from the Nunniong High Plains, I was delighted to find a letter sitting in my mailbox. It was from one of my favourite authors, a delightful girl who I met for the first time last year (it still sounds odd calling 2013 'last year'!) when I was in Fremantle, W.A. 

I've posted my letter below, so you can have a read too. It contains some VERY interesting information, particularly if you loved Loretta's previous novels, 'The Girl in Steel Capped Boots' & 'The Girl in the Hard Hat'. 

Dear Margareta,

Just read the blurb for Mountain Ash on your website. Wow! What a great premise. You’re a genius. Can’t wait to wade through the debris of that train wreck. Sounds like a hoot.  It’s a pity it’s not out now, cause I’d take it with me down south. I’m about to head there for a holiday for a couple weeks.

It’s one of my favourite places in Western Australia - the Margaret River Wine Region. I do it every year as we have family who live there and the kids just love it. As you know, I have four of them and anything to get ‘em outside, occupied and out of my hair is win, win for me. Plus I just love the ambience of the place. Everything is just more relaxed. You can smell the love on a breeze. You would know, you live in the county full time.  Actually this year, the trip is not all play no work.  I’ve decided to set my next book down there.  That means I’ll have to get stuck into some serious research and by that I mean, wine tasting. Oh no!  The things we do for art! If only they knew. LOL.

So while I’m doing that, the last book in my FIFO girls series is due to hit shelves.  Yay! Did you get that copy of “The Girl in the Yellow Vest” I sent you? Please ignore the bite marks on the spine. My toddler son, Michael has sore gums and got stuck into it when my back was turned. Which, I guess brings new meaning to the phrase, “a book you’ll want to sink your teeth into.” Ha ha! I hope you enjoy it at any rate.

I had a ball writing it. There’s heaps of comedy in this one, lots of romance and a whole lot of Queensland.  Inspiration for this book dates book to my engineering days out at Dalrymple bay. I was working on the expansion of a coal terminal there in true FIFO style. Like my other two books, this one deals with many FIFO lifestyle issues but at it’s heart is both the fragility and strength of human relationships.

There are four main characters and I wrote this story from all their perspectives. So one chapter I’d be in Charlotte’s point of view and the next chapter I’d switch into Will’s etc. It was really fun doing it this way because I got to explore all their journeys in a lot of depth. Much of the comedy came out of this too.  I absolutely adored writing one of my characters, Mark Crawford, who is the project manager on this job. I used to hang out for his chapters. He’s a kind of cross between Miranda Priestly (Devil Wears Prada) Gru (Despicable Me) and Mr Darcy (Pride and Prejudice) so he’s out there! He has a secret list of goals that he’s being pretty methodical with. But in the point of view of the other characters, he looks like he’s acting really weirdly.  So it was great fun playing with that.

I also have a novella coming out in February, called, “Operation Valentine,” to get everyone in the mood for Valentine’s day - particularly anyone who has a history of being unlucky in love. (I’ve just raised my hand here.) Not to say, that I’m unlucky now. I adore my husband. He’s the best thing that ever to me. But before that, argh! Dating was definitely not my forte. I used to look at other girls who had it all figured out with so much envy. So I wanted to write a short story, for all those hopefuls out there trying to burn a path for themselves in the modern dating world by giving love what I’d always wished it had…. A frickin’ plan!

Anyway, here’s hoping you had a wonderful Christmas with your family and wishing you great things in 2014!

Loretta

xo