A time of celebration – and a tribute to my brother
Last night, we launched The Undercurrent at Riverbend Books in Bulimba (Brisbane). It was a lovely night and I’m so grateful to everyone who came out and shared in the celebration.
Special thanks to Christine Bongers for launching (and asking great questions), my editor Mandy Brett from Text Publishing for coming up from Melbourne, my niece Katie for travelling up from Adelaide and the team at Riverbend Books for another beautiful launch event.
There was also a great deal of sadness waiting beneath the celebrations. My brother Steve – who has been at every launch even though he lives in Darwin, and who was intending on being at this one – passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on 20 July 2017.
I managed to say a few words in dedicating the night to Steve, and I wanted to repeat them here:
Steve would have been here tonight with his wife Debbie, daughter Kelly and her partner Mitchell. He and Debbie have been here for every launch. The whole family, including my nephew Aaron, was here two years ago when we launched Burn.
I’m still in shock at losing him, to be honest. He was one of my favourite people. Almost all of our photos together are of eating, drinking or laughing, and that sums up how we spent our time together. He was a gentle soul, who was also a third dan black belt in Zen Do Kai. He was practical and sensible, but would laugh so hard he’d cry at the most inane things (like the dancing donkey in Nanny McPhee. Watching him watch that scene made me laugh so much I cried.)
Steve loved his family more than anything, and they were adamant I still go ahead with this launch. So I’d like to dedicate tonight to Steve.
Despite the sadness, it was a lovely night – and a wonderful distraction. I am truly blessed to have such incredibly supportive family, friends and readers.
Here are some shots from the night:
And here’s one of my favourite shots of Steve and me.
The Undercurrent – launch event on 3 August
If you’re in Brisbane on 3 August and would like to come along to the launch of The Undercurrent at Riverbend Books in Bulimba (Brisbane), all you need to do is book online – and turn up!
I’ll be in conversation with the brilliant Christine Bongers, author of gritty, page-turning, award-winning young adult novels including Dust and Intruder.
There will be plenty of copies of The Undercurrent available for sale, and I’ll be hanging around to sign them (if you want – I promise I won’t snatch your copy from your hands and commence signing without invitation!).
As always, huge thanks to Text Publishing and Riverbend Books.
The event is free, but bookings are essential.
The Undercurrent is available from 31 July 2017
In May, Sarah at @commasandampersands provided a gorgeous reveal for the cover of my new book, The Undercurrent, on Instagram:
(Check out www.instagram.com/commasandampersands for more beautiful book posts)
The Undercurrent is a stand-alone (slightly) futuristic thriller set in Australia about 15 years from now. It’s being released by the wonderful team at Text Publishing in August this year. Here’s a bit more about the plot:
Eighteen-year-old Julianne De Marchi is different. As in: she has an electrical undercurrent beneath her skin that stings and surges like a live wire. She can use it—to spark a fire, maybe even end a life—but she doesn’t understand what it is. And she can barely control it, especially when she’s anxious.
Ryan Walsh was on track for a stellar football career when his knee blew out. Now he’s a soldier—part of an experimental privatised military unit that has identified Jules De Marchi as a threat. Is it because of the weird undercurrent she’s tried so hard to hide? Or because of her mother Angie’s history as an activist against bio-engineering and big business?
It’s no coincidence that Ryan and Jules are in the same place at the same time—he’s under orders to follow her, after all. But then an explosive attack on a city building by an unknown enemy throws them together in the most violent and unexpected way.
You can find out more (and pre-order if you’re really keen!) at: www.textpublishing.com.au/books/the-undercurrent
I’m really excited about this book, and looking forward to talking more about it when we get closer to release date.
I posted some images from my Pinterest board for this book back in February:
And here’s a closer look at that eye-popping cover. 🙂
Ramblings of a restless brain
Writing
I’m waiting to hear back from my editor following my first round of revisions for The Undercurrent, my new book due out in August with Text Publishing. You’d think I’d use this time to breathe out, give the creative side of my brain a chance to rest but, no, it turns out my brain isn’t good with taking a break. Either that or I’m so conditioned to being busy that I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m not.
So while I wait, I’ve been tinkering with an idea for the next project, daydreaming about characters, pulling together the first glimpses of a plot. It’s like solving a mystery, these early explorations, and it’s fun because there’s no pressure for it to be anything in particular. It’s just me and a bunch of ideas – some worth chasing down, some not.
This overlap seems to be part of my process. For the four books of the Rephaim series, I was always alternating between writing one book and editing the previous – the latter always having priority. It meant that when one book went to press, I already had a reasonable chunk of a rough draft of the next. It’s how I could write a book a year for four years while also working a day job. So I’m excited that have the next thing ready to work on when The Undercurrent is closer to going to press. (There’s also another story waiting in the wings, which is more of a longer-term project.)
The Undercurrent – a stand-alone speculative thriller set in a near-future Australia – has come together a little slower than the Rephaim books, partly because of the challenges life has thrown at me, and partly because it’s bigger (as in length) and more ambitious than anything else I’ve written.
Images from my Pinterest board for The Undercurrent:
Reading
Meanwhile, I’ve also been binge reading (mostly) Australian fiction:
The Messenger was a rare re-read for me, and I loved it even more second time around (many years after first reading it). I’m a little obsessed with Garry Disher at the moment, and devoured the latest instalments in his two series. New Guinea Moon and Our Chemical Hearts – while vastly different stories – were moving coming-of-age reads, both exploring grief and friendship. Fall Girl was a fun, intelligent romance from the wonderful Toni Jordan, and The Refuge an original middle grade fantasy by Brisbane writer AV Mather.
The three with the biggest emotional punch were:
- A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (the only non-Aussie in this batch): I was crying so hard at the end of this book I couldn’t even tell my husband why. This book brought back the devastation of losing close friends to cancer and I couldn’t talk about it for a good day without my throat closing over and my voice going squeaky. (There may or may not have been hormones involved.)
- The Protected by Claire Zorn: What a beautiful, poignant book of grief, resilience and hope. It’s one of the most powerful novels I’ve read, particularly in the way it deals with the insidiousness of bullying. Claire is such a gifted author. Honestly, Australia has some of the best writers in the word. I realise how biased that sounds, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
- Both of the above books by Nicole Hayes: Nicole does such a brilliant job at characterisation and gritty realism. Reading The Whole of My World was perfectly timed in the lead up to the launch of the AFL Women’s competition (I’ve watched every game so far – go Lions!), and Shelley’s story has stayed with me. A Shadow’s Breath is darker and more intense than her earlier books – dealing with a more complex form of grief – and yet still manages to end on a note of hope.
At the top of my to-read list:
Life
Life continues to be a journey of laughter and tears; great moments of joy and heart-squeezing moments of grief. I miss my dad every day. I miss who my mum was before dementia. But I still have her, she still knows who we are, and she still laughs a lot. That’s no small thing.
I’m still working full-time, but I have a plan in place to make some changes later this year. I actually don’t mind writing at 5am in the morning before work, but it would be great to have other options… Changing jobs two weeks ago was a first step in that direction.
How’s everyone else’s year going so far? What are you reading?
Another of those quick updates
I know…it’s been a long time between posts.
My life has been its usual craziness between my day job and working on the new book, but I thought I’d give a quick update on a couple of things.
Firstly, the new book…
My publisher, Michael Heyward at Text Publishing, gave it a lovely mention in a recent edition of Bookseller & Publisher, so I can now tell you it’s called The Undercurrent and it will be release in August 2017. As I’ve said before, it’s a totally new story set in a near-future Australia and is a stand-alone novel.
In other news, the Turkish translation of Burn is available, with a stunning cover design. Here are all four books in the series (in order):
My favourite reads this year include (click on each for my thoughts on Goodreads):
I’ve also been lucky enough to read a draft of Vikki Wakefield’s new suspense novel Ballad for a Mad Girl (due out in March 2017) and can tell you that it’s spine-chillingly awesome.
I’ve also been watching:
(Jury is still out on whether I’m going to see out this season of Walking Dead after that first episode. I may not forgive the writers for that one.)
Okay, that’s it for me for now.
