Explore Hidden Stories: Key Questions from THE HOUSESITTER Book Tour!

 

I have had a great time launching THE HOUSESITTER in Australia, over the last six weeks.

Post tour, I realised that over 70% of my readers are not in Australia, so most of my readers wouldn’t be privy to hearing the great questions that were asked. So, I am sharing eleven of the questions asked of me while on tour – my favourites – but they were all gold!

 

My Melbourne launch at Jeffrey’s Books with the very lovely, Meridith McKinnon!

 

1.        You chose to put the main character, Em, into a housesitting situation. Why did you decide on housesitting and not have her in a situation like renting, or staying in an Airbnb?

I love this question, and it was one I didn’t expect. To me, housesitting was the obvious choice from the beginning, as an actual housesit inspired the book.

Stepping back from that, and looking at the storyline, I needed Em to interact with the neighbours. Having been a housesitter ourselves, we found the neighbours often invited us to their house for drinks, or afternoon tea, or we chatted with them while on walks with the dogs. We had neighbours ‘pop-in’, to see if all was okay, which was most likely at the request of the homeowner. So it was this kind of interaction that worked great for Em’s storyline.

2.        Tell us about the influences surrounding the settings and atmosphere in THE HOUSESITTER?

The setting for THE HOUSESITTER is inspired by an actual area in the Huon Valley in Tasmania.

When writing the book, we weren’t living in the Huon Valley, but we were looking for a property in the area. The area is lush, with apple orchards lining the river, and yes, those ominous clouds do hug the surrounding mountains. In winter, it can get gloomy in the Huon Valley. Often, when I drive home to the Huon Valley from Hobart, it will often go from sunny blue skies to dark looming clouds as soon as cross the ‘saddle’ (mountain range) – and I love that.

You can image the dark shadows here. It’s the perfect setting for a crime novel. In fact, it’s the perfect place to write books.

3.        You’ve recently moved to the deep south of Tasmania and THE HOUSESITTER. When did your love affair with this part of the world begin?

Neither my husband nor I come from Tasmania originally. I visited Tasmania when I was nineteen and loved it. I knew I would live here eventually. When we were living in Sydney (between 2013-2017), we fly down for a long weekend. My husband wasn’t an hour off the plane before he asked me when we were moving to Tasmania.

Later, when we were travelling full-time, we often accepted house sits in Tasmania. We just kept coming back, so it was no surprise to either of us to decide this is where we wanted to be, once the love of full time travelling ran dry. We moved to Tasmania permanently in 2019.

Franklin, Tasmania. Broody waters and mountains.

4.        Can you share a bit about your writing process for this novel? Did it differ from your previous works?

This writing process was so different from past novels.

The storyline had been brewing in my head since a housesit in 2017. I knew it would be a story I’d write, but I wasn’t quite sure how. By 2023, as I worked on my third women’s fiction novel (FINDING THE WAY), this storyline kept taking over my brain. I knew, to squelch the swirling thoughts and questions, I had to stop what I was doing and write an outline. I thought, once I had that, I could just put it aside and finish FINDING THE WAY. But no… the story kept nagging at me. Then the characters began chatting with me while I slept. (They often do that when I’m writing a book).

So, I drafted the manuscript. It took me about seven weeks to get the story written, then about seven rewrites to get the story to where I knew it needed to be. Around rewrite number five, I had a secondary character push their way in and tell me I needed to pay attention to them – they were pivotal to the story – and they were!) So, back to the story I went.

In the middle of all of the rewrites, I was dealing with personal issues. I had emergency spine surgery. I was working almost solo on a major community project. We bought a house and had to furnish it from scratch (after giving everything away before we travelled full time). We moved our daughter from one state to another. My husband had his own serious medical issues. And, I had to find a new editor. It was a crazy couple of years. It’s a miracle that the book was even published within two years of the last one.

5.        You had a successful corporate career in the United States before becoming a travel writer and then a novelist. Can you tell us about your journey?

I always dreamed of writing a novel ‘someday’, but it was something I didn’t think about for years. While working in my corporate job, I used to disconnect from the mad corporate world around me by reading travel blogs. I always had the goal of travelling full time when our daughter started university. I told so many people I would do that. Some even laughed at the idea. But once we moved (home) to Australia in 2013, I started my own travel blog, then another, all in preparation for the full-time travel life I was determined to have. But then, while we were living in Sydney, I woke from a dream and began writing a novel – BENEATH THE SURFACE – but by 2018, that book was still not finished.

At the beginning of 2017, the full-time travel plan began. Despite what many may think, travel blogging is a hard slog. It’s an easy gig to love at first, but you get burned out quickly. And, when we stopped travelling mid-2019, I knew I wanted to finish BENEATH THE SURFACE, but CAMINO WANDERING was itching to be written. By then, I had walked the Camino de Santiago twice, and began writing a memoir. And I wrote that memoir, but I developed it into a fiction novel instead, taking myself out of the equation, and using just the best parts/inspirations from my Camino experiences to write CAMINO WANDERING.

I love writing fiction, but there’s still a part of my brain that enjoys the non-fiction route.

There weren’t a lot of people at the Sydney launch, but Alexandra Larach made it fun and relaxed at Better Read than Dead Bookshop. Plus, there were cupcakes, the gorgeous creations by Lyn at Imaginative Icing Designs.

 

6.        The scope on the book cover is an interesting choice, given the strict gun laws in Australia, as is the landscape image you use. As a self-published author, you have full control over your covers, so can you provide some insight into those decisions?

When I created my cover–I create all my own covers–I wanted an idyllic image for the landscape. I searched far and wide for an Australian landscape, but I didn’t want to use a photo. I wanted something less realistic since Em, the main character, goes into this situation thinking it’s the ideal place to be.

The rifle scope on the cover was a conscious choice. I tried using a bullseye target image, but with a rifle scope, your brain immediately thinks evil, a target, that someone is watching. And that’s exactly what I needed this to convey. But it is a controversial choice too, given the gun laws in Australia.

7.        There’s a great deal of Australian colloquialisms in the novel. Do you have an international audience and how does that go over with them?

It’s always interesting writing a novel set in Australia, knowing 70% of your readers are overseas. In an earlier novel, I used the word ‘doona’, but ended up changing the word to blanket, after my international beta readers all asked me what ‘doona’ meant (it’s a bed quilt/comforter, a duvet-type that is placed inside a cotton cover, for example).

In this novel, I placed context around the Australian words I used, as I felt it was important to the story to use the colloquialisms. And, I thought, if the context doesn’t explain it and a reader is still confused, Google is a great resource, and the readers can learn something new about Australia/Australians. I had one early reader reach out and tell me there is one word – bogan – that she’s now going to incorporate into her vocabulary. And I love that.

8.        If you were introducing your main character at a party, what would you say about them?

Oh, this is a fun question. Here’s the gist of my answer:

“Let me introduce you to the incredibly creative, and award-winning, pastry chef – Em McKinney. She owns a gorgeous bakery in Venice Beach, California, with her business partner, Asher. If only they’d open one here. I know it would do well here in the Huon Valley. You may recognise Em, although I hope it’s on her own merits, but sadly it’s likely because the paparazzi have been hounding her as she divorces that narcissistic B-list actor husband of hers. You’d probably recognise him. He’s always in the media. He was the one who was on one of those soaps, Neighbours or Home and Away or something. He thinks he’s the next Hemsworth, but he’s a wannabe. She’s right to be rid of him. He’ll only drag her down.”

 

With traditionally-published author, the gorgeous Kew Gibson (aka Eva Scott), at Fullers Bookshop in Hobart.

9.        What drew you to write suspense and not, say, romance or fantasy?

I love to write both women’s fiction and suspense novels. I guess I can’t ‘stay in my lane’, as they say, as there are just too many great stories to write. I love writing the dark twisted storylines in my suspense novels a little more that women’s fiction – they’re just more fun to write. I read a lot of genres, but I’m not a fan of fantasy novels and the closest I’ll get to Sci-Fi is reading the “In Death” series by author, J.D. Robb.

My first novel, BENEATH THE SURFACE, began as a romance novel. It wasn’t called BENEATH THE SURFACE then. But, after someone pointed out the ‘white knight coming to save the day’ trope in an early draft, it pulled me up. I realised then I did not want to write a novel where the woman must be saved by a man. She’ll save herself, thanks very much. So, the novel morphed into a dark suspense and became BENEATH THE SURFACE.

10.  While reading the book, I began to suspect every character you introduced. The way you built the suspense really put me in Em’s shoes. Tell me about your process for weaving the suspense together.

I knew who the antagonist was immediately and knew how I wanted to weave the suspense throughout the novel: I would write brief chapters made up of notes written to/toward Em. That was the start of the manuscript. The trick was writing the notes without giving away who was writing them.

I also knew that I needed to make everyone a suspect, and that’s where putting Em into a housesitting situation was perfect. Weaving the community, Em’s past with Ryatt, her mother’s disappearance, and Callum’s storyline into the story, gave me the perfect ‘whodunnit’ situation.

And Em has a lot going on, so having her realise what’s going on is almost a delayed reaction for her. She’s already used to looking over her shoulder, and she’s already suspicious of everyone. So, that part of writing the storyline was easy.

11.  Can you give us any hints about what you’re working on next?

Of course!
I’ll be going back to the original novel I was working on, FINDING THE WAY, which I hope to release in 2025.
I have a non-fiction novel I’m also working on, which is using another part of my brain.
I am also researching how to fund an audiobook version of CAMINO WANDERING.
And, I’m working on a major community-focused project that we will launch in 2025.

So, lots of balls in the air. I’ll find some downtime at some point…

 Have a burning question you’d love to ask? Ask away in the comments below!

If you would like to purchase THE HOUSESITTER, please check out my shop page

(This link will take you to the Payhip website)