Welcome to the Author Spotlight, Georgina and congratulations on the paperback release of ‘Fly In, Fly Out ’ which was previously released digitally as ‘Unforgettable You’ in mid-2014, can you tell us about the journey to paperback, please?
It was all a little blurry to be honest. My husband and I were in the process of an incredibly intense relocation from Brunei to Scotland, I hadn’t slept for a couple of days. There was also a bunch of other dramas as well, none of which I can remember right now! But the gist of it was that my editor at Destiny emailed me two hours before I was due to catch a plane and asked if she could call me on skype. I immediately thought it was something to do with my plan to do a nudie run wearing the merkin my lovely fellow writer Cate Ellink had sent me not long before. (Editors are obviously prescient.) Instead, I answered a call to be told my e-book was going into print. Some hours later, once the shock had worn off and it all began to sink in, a bunch of people were confronted with a manically grinning woman the entire flight to Kuala Lumpur.
What is the most exciting thing about moving from digital to paperback?
It’s all so different but I think the big thing has been the reaction of the non-writing, non-e-book reading people I know. All of a sudden my strange little pastime feels more real to family and friends. Seeing them get excited I think has been the most exciting thing!
‘Fly In, Fly Out’ is part of a series. Can you tell us about that?
Fly In, Fly Out is the first in a loose series of stand-alone novels that follow the Hardy and Blaine families who all started in the same place on Evangeline’s Rest, a fictitious winery near Margaret River. It was originally only meant to be one book and then the characters got all uppity and declared that they wanted more so I kept writing!
You’ve recently moved from one side of the planet to the other, how did that go? What’s it like living amongst the rich history and heritage of Scotland?
Stressful when it came to visas, packing, religious policemen in Brunei and worrying about missing flights! But that aside, incredibly disorientating. The strange thing is, that because Australia has a heritage linked to the UK, there’s the assumption that things will be culturally similar, but I’m finding Scotland as unique and new as I did Brunei or Saudi. There are all these new customs to learn, traditions to get my head around, never mind the local Doric dialect! I’m loving it though. The Scottish are wonderful and incredibly inclusive. I’ve already visited a bunch of castles, hiked a wee bit, ate far too much haggis (haggis mash is the BEST) and gone all mushy at the herd of hairy “coos” in the paddocks near to our house. I can’t wait until summer next year when we’re hoping to hike up some of the nearby mountains.
Our Aussie summer currently has us sweltering, how’s the weather in Scotland?
Is ‘horizontal’ a good way to describe weather?
You’ve lived in many countries, do you have a favourite?
This is going to have to be besides Australia because I miss it all the time. I love some aspect about everywhere I’ve lived, including Saudi Arabia, but I’ve got a particular soft spot for Bahrain. The people there are so lovely. It’s an island so it has this unique sea-breeze smell all year-round. There’s a lot of history going right back to Gilgamesh butting up against brand new malls and skyscrapers. You’re never bored!
Your novels are set in the West Australian wine region, and involves a family of wine makers, what is your tie to wine? Did it involve much research into the wine industry?
I spent a chunk of my childhood in the Margaret River region so it’s always been there in the background. Later my now husband and I used to travel down south a lot, visiting wineries, asking a whole lot of questions about the wine making process. (That’s what happens when you’re with a guy who trained for a while as a chemical engineer!) I also had a bit of help in that one of my friends worked as a sommelier for a while and finally… a bunch of reading. And wine tasting. Lots of wine tasting!
You’re one of the founders of the Naughty Ninjas, what’s it like to belong to a group who combine talents on a blog?
Hilarious! Somehow we managed to team up a bunch of ladies who are some of the funniest people I know, who write some of the best stuff I’ve read in romance. It’s like we all gravitated towards each other, pulled together by our mutual desire to swear and cackle and the weird and wonderful parts of the romance and erotica world. On a more practical level, being a part of a group so supportive is simply brilliant, especially around book launch time. It’s great to know you’ve got a bunch of friends who understand where you’re at and how crazy-neurotic you are for that first couple of weeks the book is unleashed into the wild. If anyone out there is thinking of starting a group, I’d really encourage them to. The key thing is just not to take things too seriously and to have a damn good laugh along the way.
Can you tell us about your current work in progress?
I’m currently working on a whole bunch of projects but the most immediate is a short story for an anthology featuring a bunch of amazing chick lit writers (Carla Caruso and Laura Greaves to name a few) that will be out this Australian autumn.
What does the future hold for Georgina Penney?
Well, I never did get around to that nudie run for Cate Ellink… and I do currently live on a property out in Scottish wilds… hmm. Otherwise, hopefully some stress-free staying in one place and some writing! I’m also going to be lucky enough to pop down to Australia for the Perth Writers festival in February this year and I’d love to catch up with any fellow romance and chick lit writers. I’ll be the swaying, jetlagged blurry-eyed broad trying to look like she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to books.
Thanks for joining us today, Georgina, and congratulations again on the release of ‘Fly In, Fly Out’. Could you give us a peek at one of your favourite parts, please?
‘What the hell?’
Jo Blaine’s motorbike helmet bounced off antique pine floorboards with a dull plastic thud as she took in the state of her Fremantle penthouse apartment.
This was so not the way she’d left it when she’d flown out to her offshore oil job in Mauritania. No way.
There was a rumpled tartan throw rug and a pillow on one of her cream leather couches, a bright-red coffee cup—her favourite damn coffee cup—was sitting on her hand-cut glass-and-jarrah coffee table and the books in her bookshelves looked as if they’d been rifled through.
She took a step further inside, kicking a pair of expensive-looking, size-fourteen men’s leather shoes out of her way, and immediately felt a cool breeze against her cheek.
The sliding door leading to the balcony was wide open, letting in the scent of a recent summer shower on bitumen. The sounds of distant traffic and boats going up and down the Swan River filtered in, an incongruous backing track to her growled exclamation.
Definitely not how she’d left it before.
‘Hello? Anyone here?’ She turned back around, narrowed eyes searching for a coffee-loving, couch-sleeping, male Goldilocks but only saw her massive silver Maine Coon cat, Boomba, who chose that moment to waddle past with a pair of men’s undies firmly clasped in his mouth. His fat furry backside moved side to side as he disappeared into the kitchen, where Jo could see stacked Domino’s pizza boxes on the counter. Her temper, always on a short fuse after a long, sleepless flight, began to sizzle and fizz as she put the clues together.
She only knew one man with size-fourteen feet. That same man had a key to her apartment and was about to experience the flaming wrath of a jetlagged woman. ‘Scott? Where the hell are you?’ She called out her best friend’s name as she kicked off her steel-capped boots and reached into her pocket for her phone. She held it to her ear, hearing nothing but dial tone, feeling herself getting more and more worked up.
Boomba waddled past her again, chirruping around his mouthful. His expression said clearly that as far as he was concerned, she should forget her house invader, admire the thing he’d killed and give him a pat.
‘And what the hell are you doing here, fuzz ball?’ Jo reached down and plucked the underwear out of his mouth, throwing it away. ‘You’re supposed to be at Amy’s. Want to tell me what’s going on?’ The cat gave her his usual entitled feline stare and then butted his head into her shin.
‘You’re no help.’ She walked through the living room, kicking a pair of socks out of her way, and stopped short in front of the vibrant blue-and-green abstract painting she’d bought last time she was in town. It was askew, as if someone had knocked it, and she felt something inside her snap.
This was not cool. Not. Cool. Her house was supposed to be empty. Her cat was supposed to be at her sister’s and there wasn’t supposed to be a … man anywhere within a good twenty metres of her right now, even if he was her best mate. She’d spent the last sixteen weeks surrounded by Y chromosomes and all she’d been looking forward to was a blessedly empty, male-free environment.
Scott finally answered, his tone suitably shocked. ‘Jo? What time is it over there?’
‘It’s eight in the morning. I’m home. In Perth. Where are you?’
‘Home?’ Scott’s deep voice momentarily took on choirboy heights he hadn’t achieved since pre-puberty. ‘You’re supposed to be on holiday in Brazil!’
Jo squeezed her eyes tightly shut. ‘Yes. Home. I cancelled the holiday because I wanted to be home. You know, that place I like to come when I’m not on some rusting oil rig in the middle of nowhere? You know that place? The place you were looking after. The place currently being lived in by someone who has feet the size of yours. The place currently containing my cat, who should be at Amy’s.’
‘Ahh. Yeah. About that.’
‘Yeah, about what? What the hell is going on?’
There was a moment of silence and then a dull thud as if something had been hit, quite hard. ‘I’ll explain, but it’s probably better I do it in person.’
‘What? Why? I just want an answer and I want it now!’
‘You’ll get one … just … just stay there. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. We’ll get all this sorted out. I’m sorry, Jo.’
Jo scowled, turning around, taking in the disorder and feeling a renewed sense of outrage. ‘You bloody well better be. And bring me some goddamn coffee. I haven’t slept properly for days and all I wanted was to have a shower and fall into bed and instead—’
‘Ten minutes,’ he said with an edge of frustration in his tone that had better not be aimed at her. Given the mood she was in at the present moment, she’d be able to take Scott on one-on-one. They didn’t call her Krakatoa out on the rigs for nothing.
Jo hung up, looking around until her eyes settled on her bedroom door.
There was no way Scott would make it in ten minutes, let alone fifteen, and she was tired.
Shooing Boomba out of the way with her foot, she headed for her room.
The feeling of tiredness was blasted to smithereens the minute she pushed the door open, took in the contents of her bed and roared with rage. ‘Who the hell are you?!’
‘AAGGHH! Gnph.’ The very naked, very buff and all-over tanned blond man who’d until that moment been sleeping spread-eagled on her bed shouted in surprise, leapt to his feet, tripped over Jo’s cat and fell facedown on the floor.
Author Bio-
Georgina Penney lives with her wonderful husband, Tony in a cozy steading in the Scottish countryside. When she’s not swearing at her characters and trying to cram them into her plot, she can be found traipsing over fields, gazing and hairy coos and imagining buff medieval Scotsmen in kilts (who have access to shower facilities and deodorant) living behind every bramble hedge.
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