Author Helen Lacey shares her childhood travelling the Australian Outback...and the books that kept her company. There's pretty horses too!

Hello friends!

I am delighted to host Helen Lacey today as part of her launch for her new novel, Date With Destiny. Helen is a fellow Aussie, fellow Queenslander, with an interesting story to tell of an early childhood spent travelling around the Australian Outback. What great motivators to write -- travel and reading.

Hi Denise and thank you for having me here today.

I think most of us have people or places that shape us and make us who we are and generally we’re moulded from a young age. I had a happy, although fairly unorthodox childhood.

My parents and siblings emigrated from Wales to Australia when I was two. Once some of the older brothers and sisters moved out and married, my parents and three of my siblings started travelling this wonderful country in a fabulously renovated motor home and did so for several years. 

Because of this lifestyle I didn’t have a conventional education for a number of years. I actually went to a total of seventeen schools over several states, but while we were travelling for those few years I didn’t attend school for any regular length of time. Instead, I had books. Lots of them, compliments of my dad. 

When I was eight and in between schools as we were half way across the Australian outback, my father gave me a battered duet copy of Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty and Jack London’s Call of The Wild. I read the stories from cover to cover, back to back and it instilled in me a lifelong love for horses and had me longing for a dog like Buck all of my own.

Next came Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, R.L Stevenson’s Kidnapped and several Dickens’s classics. Of course, some of these books were hard going for an eight year old, and I often resisted and begged to go back to the classics I loved like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. But my lovely dad insisted and whenever we stopped at a small town he would take me to the local book exchange or second hand book shop. 

It was on one of these trips where I discovered the stories that would enrich my life in ways I had yet to imagine. Little did I know at the time that these books were my education when school wasn't an option. Over the course of several towns we picked up three books – Little House On The Prairie, Anne Of Green Gables and Little Women. Because we travelled and moved around so much making friends my own age was hard and my brother and sisters were a lot older than me . . . but I had my books. I had Anne Shirley and Jo March and Laura Ingalls. These three young heroines changed my young life and set me on my path to become an author. Anne Shirley in particular resonated with the girl I was who never quite fitted in. Not that I was an orphan or had red hair. I was the youngest of eight siblings and had very ordinary brown locks – but the way Anne lost herself in stories and had such fabulously huge dreams, struck me in a profound sense.

I also realized something else – these books also had a romance running through. Anne had Gilbert, Joe March her professor and Laura Ingalls fell for Almonzo. In fact, I realized I had actually been reading romances long before I picked up my first Harlequin novel.

My dad’s gone now, but I am eternally grateful to him for introducing me to the world of Black Beauty and all the countless books I read during those early years that made me what to write stories of my own.   

About Helen:

From Welsh parents and a large family, she lives on the east coast of Australia in a small seaside town at the southern most point of The Great Barrier Reef, with her wonderfully supportive husband, many horses and three spoiled dogs.

Connect with Helen:

Website    Blog      Facebook    Twitter     Goodreads 

Date With Destiny

 Financier Grace Preston did fourteen-hour days in New York City. She didn't do small towns in Australia. Not since she'd fled almost twenty years ago. But when a personal trauma sent her home-with a secret she couldn't reveal-the last person she needed was her first love.

Local cop Cameron Jakowski had loved Grace for most of his life. But he wanted marriage and family and she didn't. He was small town, while she was big city-and lived half a world away. But for now she was right here-a walking, talking temptation. One he managed to avoid...until he made one mistake. He kissed her. And reawakened the passion that could change their lives...forever.

Read Reviews

Buy Links



Mills & Boon UK

Harlequin US

Amazon

Amazon UK

B&N

Powell's Books

BAM

indieBound

Watch this series set at Crystal Point:

I have a copy of my August Harlequin Special Edition,  Date With Destiny, to give away to one commenter. So leave a comment and share with us your favourite books when you were growing up.

Thanks Helen for appearing on my blog today. I loved reading about your literary childhood influences, very similar to my own.

And please, pretty please, don't forget to sign up here for Write...Edit...Publish's blogfest where you can post just about anything. Travel stories would be very apt for the VACATION (HOLIDAY) prompt. Thanks to everyone who's already signed up.