Merry Chats: The Joy of Historical Christmas Novels
“A lot of people give up and I’m very stubborn. I think a lot of the authors that get published rather lucky or stubborn.”
Buy MARY CHRISTMAS
🎄📚 This week, Mary Lou Stevens chats with bestselling author Maryanne O'Connor about her delightful new historical Christmas novel, MARY CHRISTMAS. Discover how this fun and festive romance came about while also getting insights into the writing journeys of both Mary-Lou and Mary-Anne. Plus, hear about exciting updates from Writes4Women and find holiday cheer with special giveaways and more! 📖✨
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction and Guest Host Announcement
01:00 Personal Writing Updates and Future Plans
02:21 Substack and Community Engagement
03:58 Turn Up the Tension Course Details
05:26 Christmas Anthology and Story Preview
06:49 Interview with Maryanne O'Connor
08:44 Maryanne's New Book: Merry Christmas
11:08 Switching Publishers and Career Longevity
16:00 Themes and Inspirations in Merry Christmas
20:02 A Mother's Sacrifice and Regret
20:57 A Father's Unwavering Support
21:38 Inspiration from a Creative Journey
23:35 Family Legacy in Fiction
26:34 Setting the Scene for 'Merry Christmas'
28:11 The Joy of Christmas Traditions
29:15 Teaching and Nurturing Young Minds
29:59 The Magic of Christmas in Literature
31:56 Future Christmas Novels and Publishing Insights
35:34 The Heart of Christmas: Love and Family
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to leave a rating and review or consider subscribing to our Substack.
Transcript
This transcript is provided as a companion to the audio episode and has not been edited.
[00:00:00] Pamela: Hello and welcome to another episode of Rights for Women. It's Tuesday, October 29 as I record this and this week I have a guest host, Mary Lou Stevens, chatting to another Mary Maryanne O'Connor.
[00:00:15] Pamela: So Mary Lou kindly stepped in when she knew I was under the pump getting edits done and did this interview with Maryanne O'Connor. Now, interestingly enough, both of these authors are historical fiction writers. Both bestselling Australian historical fiction writers and the two Mary's, Mary Lou and Maryanne are going to be chatting about Maryanne's new book, which is a Christmas novel called Merry Christmas.
[00:00:42] Pamela: Merry as in the Female name, Mary. Lovely play on words there.
[00:00:47] Pamela: So it's a fabulous, fun historical Christmas novel that Maryanne sounds like she had a fantastic time writing. And we're gonna find out all about that in the interview between Mary Lou and Maryanne.
[00:01:00] Pamela: Before we get onto that, let me tell you about a few things that are happening in my personal writing life and at rights for women. So I'm at the stage of the final edits for a place of her own. It's the third in the black Wattle Lake trilogy, and I'm so close to sending this off to my audio publisher, Belinda.
[00:01:19] Pamela: And that will be coming up probably around March in audio and at some point hopefully in the new year. Print and ebook via my UK publisher Vinci. I am awaiting the backlist covers that Vinci are currently preparing for me and I'm very excited to see what they are going to be. They're due anytime, so the whole of my backlist will be available in both ebook and print and audio by hopefully sometime in early in the new year.
[00:01:48] Pamela: So that's very exciting. Once I finish this edit and get that sent off, I'm going to be spending November refilling my creative well. I'm gonna be doing some horse riding, some gardening, some work around the house, even though that doesn't sound very creative. I have a new kitchen going in. We've got stables going in and I really need to get some things organized.
[00:02:07] Pamela: So I'm actually looking forward to that. I'm gonna be doing some walking and I'm also going to be doing some daily writing prompts, just journal writing straight off the top of my head type thing. And I'm gonna be sharing those daily writing prompts. Over on Substack on the rights for Women's Substack account.
[00:02:24] Pamela: So if you wanna play along you can join me in rather than doing nano or as well as doing nano if you want to. I know there's a lot of writers out there, authors who are boycotting nano because of nano romo organizations stance on ai.
[00:02:38] Pamela: And I had no intention of doing nano this year anyway pop over to Substack and join us on Rights for Women. If you would like to play along with that. Prompt writing experience. You can join us there as a free subscriber but you can also join as a paid subscriber and shout out to everybody who is a paid subscriber of the Rights for Women Family over on Substack.
[00:03:02] Pamela: If you do join, sign up for, I think it's around $7 50 a month. You get bonuses like my weekly Diary of a procrastinated video series my analysis of books that I'm reading and what I'm learning from that process. I share that on video. By actually analyzing the words on the page.
[00:03:19] Pamela: There's also going to be a write in each month where we get together and do a write in on Zoom. First of those is going to be on Friday, November 15 at 2:00 PM Now that will be for paid substack subscribers only, but and I do know that , day and time might not suit everybody, but I'm gonna be varying that.
[00:03:37] Pamela: Each month and doing some weekdays, some week evenings, some weekend and different times so that we can hopefully catch everybody in that write in net. And we'll be basically doing a writing sprint for about 40 minutes, silent writing sprint, and then having a chat about any writing issues that people are having.
[00:03:54] Pamela: So that's part of the paid substack experience as well.
[00:03:58] Pamela: Something else I wanted to just remind you of is that my turn up, the Tension course is available now at the very discounted rate of $199. That's for eight modules, which probably take up about three to four hours per week if you choose to do the whole lot. It's self-paced. You can dip in and out.
[00:04:14] Pamela: You can do as much as you want in a week or a day, or. Spread it out over as long a period as you want. It's going to be at that price, which is heavily discounted just till the end of November. While I work out what I'm doing with that course for next year. So pop on there. And the other great thing about that is that you get lifetime access, so you can access that at any time or go back and revise any of it at any time you want.
[00:04:37] Pamela: There's loads of material in there all from, writing a great opening, hooking the reader. Tension on every page, characterization, structure, scene writing. It's all in there. There's loads of examples from across a whole range of genres. And you'll see me in the corner talking to you on the screen with some slides that I've prepared for each module as well.
[00:05:00] Pamela: So you can head to pamela cook.com au to the courses page and find that there. Something else that you'll find there is the link to sign up for an expression of interest in my 2025 retreats, which I am all definitely organizing in the next two weeks. Now that I'll have some breathing space. So if you are interested in coming along you can go to pamela cook.com au and register your interest on the courses page.
[00:05:26] Pamela: Something else that I wanted to tell you about today 'cause I haven't mentioned this very much, is my story in the new Christmas anthology. It's a bit of a Christmasy theme. This episode, a country farm Christmas. So I have a story in here called the Christmas contract. I'll tell you a little bit about it by reading the blurb.
[00:05:43] Pamela: Bridey has until Christmas to convince her dad not to pull the loan he gave her to set up her organic produce farm. So when she gets an unexpected offer of assistance from her elderly neighbor's son, the same elderly neighbor who's been actively trying to railroad her into selling, she can't say no.
[00:05:59] Pamela: Are all the resulting fields, another complication or exactly what she needs. So this is something a little bit different for me. It's written in first person. It's very kind of light. It still has relationship and family issues in there, which are hallmarks of my writing, but it's a little bit of a light romantic comedy.
[00:06:17] Pamela: If you are a paid subscriber, you'll also get as part of this episode a bonus. Hopefully it's a bonus in your eyes of me reading the opening chapter. That's for paid subscribers. Sign up if you wanna hear me reading the first chapter of the Christmas contract?
[00:06:35] Pamela: Also, a little heads up. There is a special giveaway offer at the end of the reading.
[00:06:39] Pamela: So while we're on the Christmas theme, let me tell you about this week's guest and the guest host.
[00:06:49] Pamela: O'Connor was an avid reader as a child and dreamt of becoming a writer one day. But at that stage it was only a dream until an extraordinary event changed her perspective. Her father, Kevin, best, when she was 12, left his established career in the stock market to become one of Australia's top selling artists.
[00:07:09] Pamela: Maryanne went on to pen a couple of stories with her father but her first major novel, Gallipoli Street, gained critical acclaim when it came out in 2015 and finished at number three in the debut novels list that year. Since then, she's released seven more historical novels, and now Mary Christmas, which is her new release.
[00:07:29] Pamela: It's a historical Christmas romance, a full novel, and she says it's written for pure escapist joy. You'll definitely hear that joy in Maryanne's voice as she chats to Mary Lou Stevens about the book. Mary Lou is also a bestselling Australian historical fiction author. Her first two novels, the last of the Apple blossoms and the chocolate factory was set in her birthplace, Tasmania and her next release.
[00:07:53] Pamela: The Jam Makers is set both there and in Uruguay, where Mary Lou was recently living as she continues her slow travels around the world. I did speak to Mary Lou earlier in the year about her slow travels, and it was a really interesting conversation when I was chatting to her about the release of her second book.
[00:08:09] Pamela: So I'll pop an a link to that episode in the show notes.
[00:08:13] Pamela: So I'm gonna hand you over now to Mary Lou and I hope you enjoy this episode \
[00:08:17] Mary Lou: it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Everywhere I go, I'm in Vietnam at the moment and surprisingly the Vietnamese, ugh, Christmas. There are Christmas carols everywhere.
[00:08:28] Mary Lou: Christmas trees, Christmas decorations. The whole city goes crazy for Christmas. And why not? It's a wonderful time. Yeah. My husband and I end up singing Christmas songs in the elevators and making the locals laugh. Everyone gets into the spirit. And this year, Maryanne O'Connor has definitely got into the spirit of Christmas with her latest book, Merry Christmas, quite a departure from her previous nine books, Australian Historicals.
[00:08:57] Mary Lou: And we are here to find out all about Merry Christmas and why Maryanne O'Connor has made this leap into the festive season. Hello, Maryanne.
[00:09:08] Mary Lou: Hello. You have had a very successful career writing Australian historicals, usually based around your family experience, the war experience, all that kind of stuff, but it's a lovely and delightful surprise. To read your latest book, which is not fit in Australia. In fact, there's not an Australian insight. And it's in the cots, in the snow. So Big leap. Maryanne, tell us why.
[00:09:36] Mary Anne: It all began because I had just finished writing another very big Australian historical and, I totally love writing my Anzac stories and my big historicals. However, I was quite exhausted because they're very emotional and big journeys. As you'd depreciate as a reader as well. I. I started writing this book purely because I was watching a lot of Netflix and watching some really bad Christmas movies, and I was questioning to myself, why are you doing this?
[00:10:07] Mary Anne: And it's I just find it such wonderful escapism. Everyone loves a love story, but a Christmas love story. I think love actually is one of my favorite movies, and I think there's something so romantic and so beautiful about. At the time of year that I was sitting there watching, really, this movie was really ridiculous and I was at the bottom of the barrel.
[00:10:27] Mary Anne: I must have watched it nearly everything, on the Netflix trail. And I thought to myself, I could write this. I think I could write something a little bit better than this, I hope. And so I rang my publisher and I told her my idea about the book and she said, please tell me you've got a really good title.
[00:10:45] Mary Anne: I said you, I just thought to myself, I didn't say it to her, but I thought this will make or break whether or not she gives me a book contract for this. I said MARY. Merry Christmas and there was this big silence, and then she said, I love it.
[00:11:03] Mary Lou: Oh, thank goodness. So that's why.
[00:11:08] Mary Lou: And talking about publishers, you've changed publishers recently, haven't you?
[00:11:13] Mary Anne: Yes. That's right. Yes.
[00:11:14] Mary Anne: I wrote eight books with harbor collars which was a wonderful experience and I wouldn't take back, any book or any experience. It was so fantastic.
[00:11:23] Mary Anne: It was just time, I think for a change. I was looking for a new direction and after Covid, I think we all did this a bit where we thought, oh, maybe I'll just try something else. And I'm now with Penguin Random House who have been quite open to. Like the idea of a romance, for example. And that's been just really fun just to do something different.
[00:11:44] Mary Anne: I know quite a lot of authors actually do change publishers, but I, it just never occurred to me and then this opportunity came along. I thought, oh, okay. It's not that I wouldn't go back to Harper Collins or anything like that. I loved working with them.
[00:11:57] Mary Lou: So when you say this opportunity, did Penguin approach you?
[00:12:00] Mary Anne: No. A friend of mine was talking to them and she said, I think you'd really like this person. And I do. We work really well together. And she's Ellie, what's her name is a delightful person. And she so enthusiastic when she read Merry Christmas, for example. She ran up and she was almost crying and she was like, I love it so much.
[00:12:24] Mary Anne: And it's so lovely to have your publisher so personally invested in you like that. It was really beautiful to have this relationship with her. I think we just kindred spirits. We just really get each other and it's just been just one of those things that happened unplanned, and it just turned up in my life and I feel like I'm just sailing along with this beautiful person next to me.
[00:12:49] Mary Anne: It's wonderful.
[00:12:50] Mary Lou: That is wonderful because I think I can safely say that you've had a long career now with all these books and it's a tricky thing to do is to keep that longevity in this career do you have any tips for people? We say, I'm, I've got my third novel coming out next in, in February.
[00:13:10] Mary Lou: But it's a whole different ballgame to being an aspiring author when you're just trying to get a publishing deal and trying to get a publishing deal. Once you have a few books under your belt it's a completely different playing field. So for people like me.
[00:13:24] Mary Lou: That playing field now, do you have any tips for kind of maintaining longevity in Australian publishing?
[00:13:31] Mary Anne: It's really funny, isn't it? I always think of it a bit like being a parent, like when you are having, when you are writing the book, it's the pregnancy and then when the book is released, it's like the birth and then you have to watch the book grow up, and then you have your next child and your next child.
[00:13:45] Mary Anne: And so this is my 10th child and it is different. When I first got published, I just could not believe I got published. It took three years. I don't know what your experience was, but it was really hard to get published. And a lot of people give up and I'm very stubborn. I think a lot of the authors that get published rather lucky or stubborn.
[00:14:06] Mary Lou: Yes.
[00:14:07] Mary Anne: We're also patient. We will rewrite and rewrite. We might get upset, but we will rewrite because they are right. They're the ones in the industry and they know what the public wants and what the book sellers will take. So what you might think is the best idea in the world has to be commercial, has to be something that will sell, experience. And so by the time I got to a fair way down the track, it was never a lack of story. I was quite keen to try new things. And that's not necessarily something publishers are open to or not open to. It's more whether or not it's just gonna work at the time, I've just written a book called The Stowaway, which I finished two weeks ago, which is a big international saga. The end of it is in Tasmania, but the rest of it is the world. It is based on my great-grandfather who was a stowaway and it's, but it's a massive undertaking. Five different countries in the 18 hundreds, and it was a really big book, but I was ready for it because Merry Christmas gave me a little break.
[00:15:09] Mary Anne: And I think what I was doing before was just big book after big book. So Merry Christmas in a way was just, it was like having recess at school. Oh my God, I can sit down and have a sandwich. It was really wonderful to have that breather in between such heavy writing. 'cause it really is just pure pleasure, this book.
[00:15:31] Mary Anne: And I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Not that I don't enjoy the others. It's different. Yeah.
[00:15:35] Mary Anne: reinvention can be absolutely fantastic.
[00:15:38] Mary Anne: It is wonderful for the soul. It's just the timing has to be right, I suppose is what I was saying, and that's what keeps. It all fresh for me. Coming up to 10 books, that, that bit of reinvention and having an injection of new people behind me has been very exciting and lifted me again.
[00:15:56] Mary Lou: Oh look, this is an absolute delight and it's perfect Christmas reading. So Marianne, tell us a little bit about the story of Merry Christmas.
[00:16:03] Mary Anne: The book is, oh, it's just a love story, but it isn't just a love story. Do you know, all these years I've wanted to write a romance, but I've been a bit afraid to write a romance. I think maybe I'm getting older. I'm a little bit more less worried about.
[00:16:20] Mary Anne: What people might think, oh, you've written a romance and that is so ridiculous. 'cause I love romance and it's got a bit of a stigma about it that I don't think it deserves whatsoever. I think people think it's going to be very formulaic and of course you do have that. It's boy meets girls something.
[00:16:37] Mary Anne: Troubles them in the middle, and then they usually end up together. But it's so much more than that because that is life. And you wouldn't say that every single person's romance in real life was just formulaic. It's a very individual story of two people coming together and trusting each other with their heart.
[00:16:56] Mary Anne: And it's just such a courageous thing to do, an enormous thing to do. Then they have children. So in 1,909. It was even bigger because a woman had to give up so much and Merry Christmas. She's not Merry Christmas at that point. Merry Richards has a career as a teacher that she's had to fight so hard to get.
[00:17:18] Mary Anne: So even though she's met this lovely man. It's not just, a matter as her sister and mother think of, just marry him. Then he's Mr. Right? She's but I have to give up everything and the man doesn't have to give up everything. So that was wonderful exploring that. Idea of women starting to, being able to assert their presence in the world with the suffragette movement going on and having this love versus career when it really was.
[00:17:49] Mary Anne: It really was. It still is a bit now, but back then it, you didn't, you couldn't have both. You couldn't have it all. So it was a lot to explore, even though it's a romance, it's a romance with some backbone. I like to think,
[00:18:04] Mary Lou: and it's interesting I do love the way that you have woven in themes from your previous books, and I know that women's rights very important to you and something that you've lectured about as well.
[00:18:14] Mary Lou: And there is a lot about what it was like for women back then. You've woven in a bit of the suffragette movement, which is also in one of your previous books. And the Fabulous Gladys, I think it is who she meets at the bookshop. The bookshop owner. Yes. Yes. Gladys, yes. Who gives Mary some words of advice but also the attitude of her mother and her sister I think is quite lovely when it comes to terms of love being an adventure.
[00:18:41] Mary Lou: A way of life in, its in its own way. You know that you, yes, you can have the adventure of a career, but you can also have the adventure of love. And it keys back into that thing you were talking about with romance. It's an adventure and it's different for everyone. And they're saying, this could be very different for you.
[00:19:00] Mary Anne: It could. That's right. And it could be, it shouldn't have to be a choice. And certainly in this day and age, I'm very happily married and I have children and I have a career. And I'm so blessed that I can have those things. And so many of us have these things now. However, it doesn't mean it's easy. And having it all means doing it all.
[00:19:21] Mary Anne: So it's not an easy thing. And back then they basically just said, you can't do it. Of course you can. You just have to have a, I think a very understanding partner because the woman does have to have the baby and breastfeed and do all these sorts of things. And we have to physically do it, but it doesn't mean we can't have the career.
[00:19:39] Mary Anne: And when I was doing those things, I was at university and my husband helped me. I worked part-time as well, but he helped me. Supported me to be a mother and a career woman. And all the fledgling years of getting to this point as an author, he really supported that. It would've been very hard without his support and back then if he didn't have a very modern thinking man, it was out of the question.
[00:20:02] Mary Anne: So it's quite close to her. My mother was actually denied an education it's very close to home because she had to give up so much that she wanted. To be married and have children. And it wasn't my father's fault. Her father actually said when she was 14, you have to leave school.
[00:20:18] Mary Anne: And she's and she was really bright and she said, oh, but I don't want to leave. And he said there's no point to a woman having an education. You'll just be a secretary and then you'll get married and that's what you should do. And she was too shy to argue and her little sister said. No, I won't do it.
[00:20:33] Mary Anne: And she was allowed to stay at school and mum was always so upset about that, why didn't I fight? But she was shy, so not everybody's going to be like, Merry Christmas and have this fire in spirit. A lot of women, it was so sad that they didn't get to have a career and pursue all these wonderful things with the mind and the intellect because they just.
[00:20:51] Mary Anne: They just couldn't fight it. And but thank God we did or we'd never be sitting here now.
[00:20:57] Mary Lou: And talking about fathers and the the impact they have on their daughters, your father had an amazing impact on you. Most parents say, oh, make sure you've gotta back up the creative world, the artistic life.
[00:21:12] Mary Lou: It's not stable, you've gotta have a proper job, but your dad did the complete opposite. Yes. Can you tell us about that?
[00:21:21] Mary Anne: My father's Kevin Best. Who was he? He actually died a year before my first book contract which was, I was so sad he didn't get to see that happen. However I believe that he definitely was watching on from where he is, but he actually did the same thing at the same age.
[00:21:38] Mary Anne: I didn't become an author until I was 43 and dad was 43 when he became an artist. I was only, I think 11 or 12 when that happened, and I just watched his life change. He was the most beautiful man, very inspirational, gorgeous human being that, he just, I. Loved everybody met. You felt like you were the most special person in the world when you talked to him.
[00:22:02] Mary Anne: So to have him as a father anyway was a privilege. But to watch him go from a stockbroker raising the six children with mom and putting us through Catholic schools and whatever it el it was so hard for them to make it to meet. But he just, he got log service leave and he said to mum, I really want to be an artist.
[00:22:20] Mary Anne: You'd always wanted it. And so he started painting at night. Like one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning and then getting up at six and going to work all day. And when he got the long service leave, he said, I'm gonna give it three months and if I make it. If I don't. And he made it. He became in the top 10 selling artists in Australia.
[00:22:39] Mary Anne: And and I watched this, 10, 11, 12 years old, totally inspired. That don't ever let anyone tell you can't have a creative career 'cause you can't, especially if you're very talented like he was. And and he believed in it so much and he had such a happy life. He was such a happy man. Yeah. And it, it gave him so much joy.
[00:23:02] Mary Anne: He couldn't wait to go to work in the morning, go downstairs to the art studio and paint masterpieces, and I can't wait to write. I'll get up at five in the morning sometime because I can't wait to do it. I love it that much. I really that
[00:23:16] Mary Lou: is that's wonderful that he was such an inspiration to you and such an example as well, and that you still love it after 10 books.
[00:23:24] Mary Lou: Well, 11. Including the style.
[00:23:26] Mary Anne: Never ever think I don't want to do it. I it's always a matter of, I wish everything else didn't get in the way. You're like, I just wanted, that's what I do. I love it so much and it's so wonderful to wind my family into so much of it because I feel like they are coming to life all over again.
[00:23:45] Mary Anne: Like they will stay. There's a legacy in fiction that you can keep them alive, keep them here.
[00:23:51] Mary Lou: That has been such a big part of your previous Australian historical fiction, so that they're based on the true stories of your family. Is there anything in Merry Christmas that's based on your family?
[00:24:04] Mary Anne: I think there's a lot of my mother in there and my sister there's moments mom's having to really she ended up going to university. I. She did her HSE with me and went to university and studied feminism and arts and all these things. And my brother died just before I started Majors C and she was so devastated that's what she did.
[00:24:27] Mary Anne: She's took a year to mourn and then she went to university because she was like if this is what life's going to give me, I'm going to. Do the thing I want most. And it really helped with her grief, but it was also wonderful for her 'cause she finally got to be herself and go and have this career.
[00:24:43] Mary Anne: There's lots of Mary's ideology coming from my gentle mother flowing into this story. So there's definitely that I can hear her voice in Mary. Even though she was so shy and Mary's very forthright, it's more that, that, why can't I do that? Why can't I? And I think that's just so wonderful to have mom's experience wounding to there.
[00:25:07] Mary Anne: And the relationship between the two sisters. I've actually got with one of three sisters, one of six children, and when she's getting married, it's very emotional. I cried a lot in. Seeing when she tries on the wedding dress, because back then you weren't gonna see each other, you didn't have a phone and you didn't have the internet, you didn't have any of those things.
[00:25:27] Mary Anne: So if, it's like in prior to prejudice if she's moving away, if your sister's moving away, like when Jane is gonna get married. And Lizzie knows that she's not gonna spend every single day of her life with this beautiful soul anymore. That her closest person. And that's very much in that part.
[00:25:42] Mary Anne: When my sister got married, my older sister, I was, once again, I was 12. It was a pretty big year, wasn't it? And she was leaving home first one, 'cause mom had six children in eight years, so we're all really close. And Jen was sitting there, she was sitting in a bedroom. Everyone said goodnight and all the lights went out.
[00:25:58] Mary Anne: And then we just heard this voice through the night going, I'm getting married tomorrow and nobody cares. And we all ran in there and we all hugged her and such a beautiful family moment. We're all just sitting on a bed hugging her and crying and but it is, it's such a massive rite of passage, especially back then when it was like you left home when you got married, you didn't move out for a while beforehand usually.
[00:26:22] Mary Anne: Yeah, that, that's very much my sister leaving home, that scene. And I cried a lot even now. I was like, oh, that was really sad because it breaks the family up. So there's moments, there's lots of moments,
[00:26:34] Mary Lou: and the decision to set Merry Christmas in the Coville and those beautiful descriptions of the country, town and Oxford.
[00:26:43] Mary Lou: What inspired all of that?
[00:26:46] Mary Anne: Oh, I think my love of Christmas I really do love it and I wanted to make it. The most beautiful setting I could, and I wanted it to feel like. A lovely gift to the reader that they would walk down the snow covered streets with the honey stone buildings and the echoes of the past and the ball and all the beautiful English food and, muled wine and handsome gentlemen and the overcoats and top hats and gowns and Christmas trees with, traditional beautiful ornaments and just this sense of the carols and the frosted air. I wanted it to be You were there, you were actually there. And and I worked very hard on creating a world that you really felt you were in.
[00:27:37] Mary Lou: You've done a beautiful job. It is absolutely wonderful.
[00:27:40] Mary Lou: I did feel as though I was there. I'm in steamy, muggy Vietnam, and I'm reading about, the frost and the cold and Mary almost dying of hypothermia
[00:27:51] Quite a nice juxtaposition, a bit of a change.
[00:27:54] Mary Anne: I've written once in Vietnam actually, and yes. It was the same sort of feeling like, oh, I'm so hot writing this book. I might go and sit in front of the air conditioning or something because the power suggestion, you really feel like you are there.
[00:28:07] Mary Anne: Yeah, so I've done both of those ones
[00:28:11] Mary Lou: and I think also a big part of Christmas especially perhaps more when I know, I was thinking my niece. When she was young, they had a nativity play. We definitely had nativity plays when I was growing up. I got to play Mary. I had a big crush on the boy who played Joseph, and I still remember it to this day, since Stephen Hall, I remember.
[00:28:32] Mary Lou: Yeah. And big and a nativity play. And there is a nativity play going on in this witch. Har Oxford. Hilarious. So was that inspired by the relativity players that you did when you were at school? Yes,
[00:28:45] Mary Anne: I was the storyteller and I cried 'cause I wanted to be an angel, but but they made me the storyteller 'cause I've always been like this very confident and up there able to be a bit dramatic.
[00:28:58] Mary Anne: I still even remember the lines. Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem. I still remember my mother drilling it into me to not. Embarrass myself and mess it up. So it all went very well. But I remember it so well and all the parents are crying and loving it. 'cause we're all in kindergarten.
[00:29:11] Mary Anne: That was a big kindergarten back then with the nuns and, whole bit. But I was also a teacher for quite a while of primary school children. So Mary, when she's teaching, that's. So much what it's like. I hope any teacher reading it'll get that you're trying to manage these incredible personalities, and there's always one of each of those characters in a class.
[00:29:34] Mary Anne: And but you love them so much and it teaching is an absolutely fantastic profession. It's just a very hard profession these days. I think it's gotten harder and harder. But I did try to encapsulate. Mary's love of teaching into what I loved about it. It's such a privilege to nurture even one mind, let alone 30.
[00:29:53] Mary Anne: And it's that was really wonderful being able to write as a teacher. That was really good. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:29:59] Mary Lou: And you say you want this to be a gift for the reader and I think, I really do think it is including the recipes at the back, which is a delightful surprise. So we have mold wine. A delicious winter treat, perfect for a snowy Christmas, and a heart shaped cake, which does feature towards the end of the book.
[00:30:18] Mary Lou: And you've given us two options. So the fruit and your favorite cake, the red velvet. So these are recipe that you make at home.
[00:30:29] Mary Anne: Oh, and it was actually the publisher's idea, Ellie Watts, she's I've had this idea. And I'm like, oh, that's fabulous. Let's definitely do that. And they're like what's your favorite cake?
[00:30:37] Mary Anne: And that's my favorite. I love that cake. I think it's beautiful. I haven't mastered making it myself. No. My nanny used to make fruit cake though every year
[00:30:45] Mary Lou: I'm gonna encourage people when they read this to actually make the cake at the back.
[00:30:49] Mary Lou: And take photos and tag you, Maria O'Connor with Merry Christmas.
[00:30:54] Mary Anne: Oh, I really do love the way they've done the book. I love the cover. I said I want this to look quite bridgeton. I think that's, it's very in vogue, but I want it to be a bit fabulous 'cause I love all the the costumes in Bridgeton, the big dresses and the really elaborate.
[00:31:09] Mary Anne: So I think that really richly, Christmas, red. Big gown. It's just so fabulous. Yeah. And then of course, in it was my idea to make each chapter like a little advent calendar. I love that.
[00:31:21] Mary Lou: When I was reading it, I was showing that to my husband. I went, oh my gosh, they've got so much trouble. So every oh, I'm back to front.
[00:31:28] Mary Lou: There we go. Every chapter heading has a different little graphic at the start. I gotta tell
[00:31:34] Mary Anne: you, when I actually got the edits back, you'll appreciate this as a writer. They said, our only real criticism is, can you put more Christmas in there? I was like, how much more Christmas? I just, I couldn't believe they wanted more.
[00:31:48] Mary Anne: So I have just put into that novel every single possible bit of Christmas I've ever seen. Anyway,
[00:31:56] Mary Lou: so is this the one and only Christmas novel? From Maryanne? No, I,
[00:32:02] Mary Anne: Look, when I actually said Merry Christmas and she said I love it. I had a double book deal within two days, so she really loved it. There's another one being written as we speak, called Christmas Joy.
[00:32:13] Mary Anne: She's a very Pollyanna character. It's, again, sent in England probably in Bath. I'm thinking Bob. And she's a ray of sunshine who is very poor, but she is so kind, beautiful. She enriches everyone's lives and and of course she falls in love with a certain man and off we go. So that's Christmas joy.
[00:32:33] Mary Lou: That's wonderful. So you do, you have two separate deals now with two different publishers?
[00:32:38] Mary Anne: No penguin Random House have given. I've got the stow away with them and I've got the two Christmas novel. Ah, there'll be more Christmas novels for sure. This is something that's really working. I feel but it's just coming up.
[00:32:50] Mary Anne: But they're really happy. And I have written a contemporary still trying to decide when it's the right time for me to release a contemporary. It's written, it was written in Covid it's just sitting there. They're really interested in it. We're all just sitting there going, when's the right time?
[00:33:04] Mary Anne: 'cause right now I'm such, I'm so placed historically in the genre, so yeah, we'll see. It'll come out eventually.
[00:33:13] Mary Lou: Yeah. And I know maybe under a different name. I don't know. People have different ways of handling these things, and I'm sure when the time is right, you'll handle it perfectly. We can expect more Christmas novels from Mariano O'Connor.
[00:33:26] Mary Lou: It's such a theme, the Christmas novel, and I have friends who put out Christmas novellas every year and they all do really well. And, I love listening to Christmas songs and watching Christmas movies as the time gets closer. And like I said, here in Vietnam, all the Christmas decorations and Christmas light.
[00:33:46] Mary Lou: And there's a church here that does the most amazing Christmas display. It's just so full on, it's like disco, Christmas. And people do, they just get swept up with the whole Christmas spirit. But I find it interesting because I would think, and you can tell me I'm wrong, that a Christmas novel would have a limited cell time.
[00:34:10] Mary Lou: Is that something that you've discussed with your publisher?
[00:34:12] Mary Anne: That's why it's come out in October that they wanted to give you a really good sort of ramp. But it could easily be re-released is the other thing. And also. Start to release them as series, sitting next to each other.
[00:34:26] Mary Anne: And of course there's always the opportunity of overseas, which is it is another motivation why I wanted to set it in England. Yeah. I'm always writing about Australia and it's only so big a readership. That's a very honest answer that there is. That was a little bit of that as well. But also I really did wanna write a white Christmas
[00:34:43] Mary Lou: Clearly there's a big market for Christmas novels and they continue to sell and there's a big market,
[00:34:49] Mary Anne: We had to really rush the edits in the end because she said we're going to put it down OCT October one, and, I'd only just got the edits really. That was a lot of hard work. I'm not saying it was poorly edited by any means, a fantastic editor.
[00:35:01] Mary Anne: It was more the fact it was a lot of hours to get it out by October one and to make it just right. But I think the Christmas cake was cooked perfectly and it's also it's short. It is half the sides of my massive novels, so it felt so much easier. To me, to be able to write something of normal sized.
[00:35:20] Mary Lou: So how many words is it?
[00:35:22] Mary Anne: I
[00:35:22] Mary Lou: think it's about 65,
[00:35:24] Mary Anne: 70? Yeah. Normally my book 120,000.
[00:35:28] Mary Lou: Yeah, mine too. That's what I'm contracted for. 120,000. So yes this would be a delicious little break.
[00:35:34] Mary Anne: I think that one of the nicest characters, the sweetest character is Penny, which is his orphan niece, and she's lost her mother.
[00:35:41] Mary Anne: And there's just this. Just really beautiful, I felt, and I think that's all my maternal instincts and my teaching instincts coming out for that child that, it's a time of year when love is everything and that can be love for a lost one, loved one as well. So I thought it was really special to show Penny's heartache of missing her mother at Christmas and how Mary and Jonathan and the family can come around and hold her.
[00:36:11] Mary Anne: And I thought that was really beautiful. When she sings silent at night, I cried. And I hope that the readers feel those little moments that that we cherish about Christmas. 'cause it's a time of love. Why not write a love story?
[00:36:23] Mary Lou: Yeah. And you have, and you've done it very well. Mary O'Connor, congratulations on the first of perhaps many Christmas novels.