Celebrating feel-good fiction

Here I am with romance writing buddies Giselle Farina and Jo Jukes at the recent Romance Writers of Australia 2023 conference in Sydney. Note the coffee cups!

With the theme “all that glitters,” the conference gave us a wonderful chance to network as we honed and celebrated our efforts to write and share our stories of hope and hearts and uplifting endings.

Warmest thanks to all who contributed to a fun and fulfilling weekend for hundreds of writers, including me.

You might enjoy this recent Sydney Morning Herald feature on the current popularity of our genre.

Launch invitation

Please join me for a chat with Aussie author Clare Fletcher about her latest rural romance, Love Match, at Better Read Than Dead on Saturday 23 September 2023 from 3pm to 4pm.

Readers loved her 2022 debut novel, Five Bush Weddings, and Love Match is a joy — a generous read, with many surprises!

Book here for the talk, tea, scones and bubbles — a bargain at just $5.00.

A tiny forest is born

A dear friend tells me authors may never know what influence their books will wield.

Imagine how thrilled I was to discover that one reader of my House of Spades novel was inspired to reforest parts of her old dairy farm with local rainforest plants! I imagined a few small seedlings, but she recently walked me through two planting sites of nearly 3,000 new trees!

The original “Ross and Flame Regeneration Site” was funded by the Riparian and Habitat Recovery Funding Project funded through the Australian Bushfire Recovery Package for wildlife and their habitats.

Another planting (on the creek flat) involved volunteers from the “Rainforest 4 Foundation” and also “Stone and Wood” Brewery. Deepest thanks to all the volunteers and all involved!

The Ross and Flame Regeneration Site inspired by Amber Jakeman's novel House of Spades

In the past couple of years, this part of the world was devasted by fires and two floods, and the road was only recently repaired. Deepest thanks to all the volunteers who planted them!

While visiting, I absolutely relished the opportunity to hide away for nearly a week in the farmhouse that inspired House of Spades. This has allowed me to write and edit a large part of my next book. I’m beyond grateful.

A view of the old dairy from the farmhouse that inspired Amber Jakeman's novel House of Spades

Amber Jakeman enjoyed this warm chair by the farmhouse fireplace to write much of her next novel.

For those who might not yet have read House of Spades, it’s a “runaway bride” novel, a rural romance and a seasoned romance, featuring an older hero and heroine.

House of Spades asks whether love can blaze later in life. It takes readers to the beautiful Byron Bay hinterland, where serial single Flame Rhys accidentally rekindles a widower’s passion for life, for his land and for love.

But how can Ross Archer convince Flame to stay with him, when every other lover has let her down? And will a dark secret spoil it all?

To celebrate the planting of all these new trees, I’ve discounted the House of Spades ebook by 75 per cent for this month. It should cost you no more than a dollar or two, depending on where in the world you live. I very much hope you enjoy it!