Spring has Sprung

I can’t imagine a world without books. Ebooks, hardcovers, trade paperbacks. How-to books, biographies, history books, romances, who-dunnits, thrillers. Inherited, gifted, won, bought, loaned by friends, borrowed from libraries. Books aren’t luxury items—they’re absolute necessities. Until recently I read at least three per week.

Now, with my world topsy-turvy, I’m looking longingly each day at a new novel by one of my favourite authors. I will get to it!

This, my first blog, is part of the reason for my current busyness.

Since 1991 I’ve been a member of the Romance Writers of Australia. Later this year—finally!—I’ll publish my first novel.

The Heart Has Its Reasons has had a long gestation.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be issuing 8 short stories. The last, There’s None So Blind, about a real-life ancestor’s misfortunes, inspired my novel, set in the late 18th century.

My investigations into an ill-fated marriage began after I uncovered a formerly mysterious branch of the family tree. Without the internet that might never have happened.

It’s libraries, however, that have helped me fill in details.

The newspaper holdings of the National Library, for example. Local libraries and their books on costume design, architecture and genealogy.

The libraries where I live are wonderful. We can borrow books, sheet music, magazines, CDs, DVDs. There are numerous activities they host, like author talks (I’ve enjoyed sessions by Judy Nunn, Tara Moss, and Toni Jordan). I connected at the local library with my “Publishing Guy”, Ocean Reeve, following his seminar.

Thinking back to my first forays as a child into our little library, I realise what an influence they’ve had on me. Spring Has Sprung is, I hope, an affectionate look at two ex-librarians, based as they are on the pair who set me on the path to reading, and now writing.

Spring has Sprung is available for FREE by clicking this link https://www.bronwynhouldsworth.com/books followed by the cover of the book. Enjoy.