May New release Feature Author: Karly Lane, Take Me Home

Pamela: [00:00:00]

Welcome to Writes4Women, a podcast all about celebrating women's voices and supporting women writers. I'm Pamela Cook women's fiction author, writing teacher, mentor, and podcaster. Each week on the Convo Couch, I'll be chatting to a wide range of women writers, focusing on the heart, craft and business of writing, along with a new release feature author each month.

 On a personal writing note, my current release is All We Dream. If you'd like to know more about it or any of my books, you can check out my website at pamelacook.com.au for more information.

Before beginning today's chat, I would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the Dharawal people, the traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast is being recorded along with the traditional owners of the land throughout Australia and pay my respects to their elders past, present, and emerging.

And a quick reminder that there could be strong language and adult concepts discussed in this podcast. So please be aware of this. If you have children around.

Now let's relax on the Convo Couch and chat to this week's guest. This month's new release feature author on Writes 4 Women is Karly Lane. Karly is an author of rural and women's fiction. She lives on the beautiful mid-north coast of New South Wales in a valley her family has called home for five generations. Karly currently has 17 novels published with Allen & Unwin with an 18th due for release this December.

Karly's 17th novel, Take Me Home, which came out this month, was inspired by her own recent journey through beautiful, mysterious Scotland.  Karly is this month's new release feature author, and I'm really looking forward to chatting to her about her publishing career and her new novel Take Me Home. So, Karly, welcome to Writes4Women. Great to chat and I can see all your gorgeous books up there behind you. You've written – is it 16 or 17 published books now?

Karly: [00:02:19] 17. I think it is. Yeah.

Pamela: [00:02:20] 17. That's amazing. Before we get into talking about the new one, take me home. Could you just give us a little bit of a history of your writing career? You know… how you ended up being a writer and what your path to publication was?

Karly: [00:02:33] I started dabbling when I was quite young, I got married quite young and we moved to a different town, and I didn't know anybody. It was actually a city, I don't do cities very well to start with, so I became a bit of a hermit and just used to read a lot. I decided I'd try writing, but it was before the internet was really around. And that sounds so like a dinosaur, but before that it was really isolating. It was really hard to try and figure out what to do and how to do it.

So for a long time, I just did my own thing. And it wasn't until, I don't know how many years later, but I was having my third child and the internet was now a thing and I could look things up and I began to reach out to different things, Romance Writers of Australia, places like that. And that's where I really learnt what to do and how to do it properly and do workshops and conferences. So that was kind of my turning around point, where it sort of all took off.

I didn't know what genre I was writing actually, I was still a blundering around. I started with sort of a romantic suspense type thing with a military background. I was reading that sort of thing at the beginning and really loved it. But when I got into learning the craft a lot more, I realised there wasn't really an avenue in Australia to publish that if I wanted it published and put into bookshops, there wasn't really anywhere for that to go.

So I kind of went back to the drawing board and the write what you know type of thing. I started just writing about a mother who'd brought her children back home and North Star was the first book that I've written that was rural, but I didn't actually know it was rural. It was just that it was set in a small Australian town and luckily that's what was happening at the time, they were looking for Australian books. So I think I was in the right place at the right time when that came around and no one was more surprised than me when I got accepted! And I'd been writing for a while and I had a few there so I was lucky in a way that I could just keep the momentum going, I guess.

And  I've learned so much along the way, so yeah, I kind of fell into the rural thing accidentally, but it’s the best thing I ever did. I love that genre.

Pamela: [00:04:39] When was that Karly, that North Star was published, can you remember?

Karly: [00:04:43] I think it was 2010 or 2011.

Pamela: [00:04:46] Cause I remember reading that. My first rural was published in 2012 and I was the same as you. I didn't really intentionally write rural, I just happened to write something that was set on a horse property and I remember it was around the same time. 

So you said you started off in like the military romantic suspense. I think you've written some YA, is that right?

Karly: [00:05:06] Yeah, I kind of went a bit all over the place.  I had so many stories in my head, and there was a fantasy series as well. So yeah, I dabbled in all of it because I read widely, I think is the problem.

Pamela: [00:05:19] No, not a problem. That's great. And so you went into the rural thing. Would you classify your books as rural romance or general rural fiction? Where do you think they fall in that whole spectrum?

Karly: [00:05:30] I guess it's easier to see why they would be classed as rural romance. There's always a central relationship with most of my rural stuff. But I think there's always a bigger issue. It's usually something, a community kind of issue or a different relation doesn't necessarily have to be the romantic relationship. But I mean, I don't mind, I love romance and I think I try to sometimes write a book without it, but it always ends up in there. So I think it's just what I write.

So yeah, either/or.  It's sort of rural fiction, but it's got romance in it too.

Pamela: [00:06:03] And with the new one, Take Me Home, would you say that's going in a slightly different direction in terms of, well, it's obviously different in terms of location, which we're going to talk about. But would you say it's sort of more in the women's fiction genre than your previous books?

Karly: [00:06:19] Yeah, I s went to Scotland and then I came back and thought, ‘I need to write a book about Scotland’, but I had no idea how I would do that with rural fiction. So I put it to my publisher that I wanted to write a book set in Scotland, and can we sort of maybe aim it a bit more women's fiction type thing?

So we did that and even though it still ended up pretty much rural because Scotland is so rural (I tried to write it without it, but it always ends up a little bit of rural in there). So I think it's mainly that this was centered on my main character and her Gran and the family. There were a lot of women's fiction issues, I guess, so it's a women's fiction, but it's still got that rural slant to it, I think.

Pamela: [00:07:03] Yeah, definitely. And of course, it starts out in a country town, doesn't it? Where Elle is living and she's fairly stuck, I guess. And that struck me as a really classic  women's fiction motif as well of the main character being stuck at a place in their life where it isn't allowing them for any sort of personal growth or she feels a bit stunted where she is.

 And was that something that came up naturally for that character? Or, or how did you work  with that idea?

Karly: [00:07:31] I wish I had a formula that I actually sat down and wrote with, but sometimes it's really hard. All I knew was I wanted a book set in Scotland and I figured it's easier if you write a character you can sort of relate to a little bit, so I had to make an Australian character. So that sort of set her in a small country town it kind of worked his way around that. And I guess, because she fell into that. I didn't really know what I was going to write her character as to start with, but I knew she had to go to Scotland. She had to sort of want to have a bit of an adventure.

And she would've had to be in a situation where she could leave Australia. I guess it's sort of it was just a natural thing that she was just wandering around aimlessly until she had some kind of thing to do.  She kind of had to fit the storyline basically and then she took on her own little character. It's always a relief when that works out!

Pamela: [00:08:25] It is isn't?!  And Karly what's your writing process?  So when you got that first idea you thought, yeah, I definitely want to write a book set in Scotland, had your idea for your main character or the beginnings of her. What's your writing process then from that point, because you have written a lot of books, really, even in that I guess a decade or more, time period.

So how do you then go about actually getting to the end of that story?

Karly: [00:08:48] I have no idea how I wrote the 17 or 18 books or whatever it is because I honestly sit there some days thinking, what am I doing?  Sometimes if I'm lucky enough to know where I want to start with a book, I will start at the beginning, but often I find that my head's racing ahead and I think, ‘oh, this would be a really good scene’ but it's sort of more of a scene probably towards the end. I am absolutely all over the place. It is horrific. I often get asked should you do some workshops? And I just think, how would I teach a workshop. What I do?! I honestly am so all over the place. It's ridiculous, but I guess I just muddle my way through and somehow it just works out. Yeah, it, it depends. Some of them fly really well like this one did, and there's only been a couple of others that I had a really good grasp of the whole story, how I wanted it to go and they tend to sort of flow a lot better, I find.

But occasionally when I've only got the snippets of a scene or a character or a career or something that I've started with, they're the ones that I tend to just flop around with and just try and figure out what the hell they're all going to do and how it's all gonna come together.  I often just find myself just putting little scene notes along the way. And then I come to that and think, oh yeah, that's what I was going to do and then see if that still works and just flow on from there. I wish I was more professional sounding but I just wing it.

Pamela: [00:10:12] You're not alone. So many people I speak to are the same and just it's all part of the mystery of that whole process, I think!

Karly: [00:10:20] That's a nice word. Mystery.

Pamela: [00:10:21] Yeah. It's mysterious. It sounds like you're a pantser rather than a plotter, Karly?

Karly: [00:10:28] Definitely! Some days I don't even have the pants on.

Pamela: [00:10:33] Now there's an image for everyone.

And so how long would it take you? I mean are you generally working to a deadline? Are you generally contracted from book to book, or do you set your own deadlines? How do you go in terms of getting that draft out?

Karly: [00:10:47] I get contracted for so many books. Luckily! I don't know how I did it, but I have been able to be a book or two ahead.

So in those really great times where you've got a book that just flows and writes itself, I end up ahead of myself quite often, which is good because then when life gets hectic, you're sorta not stressing so much to have that book out. My December one is already in the editing process, so that'll be out in December and I have finished the first second draft of the May book that'll be coming out next year. So technically I've sort of got two books written and now I'm just working on my new lot of contract ones, which is another four books, which I don't really have anything written for yet.

So as long as I can keep that little distance ahead of myself, I'm okay with the deadline. Cause they're not too restrictive at the moment, but I think I would struggle if I had six months to write and get it out, sort of thing. It would just be too much. I like to have that buffer zone where I've got a couple out and then I can just work at my own pace.

 But I, I try to write every day through the week to make it a proper job. So when the kids are at school and stuff, but I mean, I've found since COVID, everything's just been out of whack. We got out of a routine and everyone was home and then they weren't. And I think it's only just now starting to sort of get back into some kind of routine.

It threw me for a while, but if I can stay on that routine of writing daily, even if it's just revision or something, I tend to work a lot better towards my target.

Pamela: [00:12:19] Yeah, well, you're definitely not alone there in COVID throwing everything out. I think all of us have experienced that, so hopefully we're all getting back into some sort of normal.

And Karly your publisher's obviously really happy with the direction your writing is going, and I know that you're very well loved by readers, so do you sometimes pinch yourself when you think back to your beginnings as a writer and think about where you are now?

Karly: [00:12:42] Absolutely every day. And I think sometimes I sort of forget what I'm doing until it comes to you've got a book out and you suddenly start seeing it on the shelves and you see it around and that's when it sort of really hits you. It's like, whoa. But yeah, I still have those pinch me moments all the time.

Just even seeing it in a catalog or something. I just keep thinking I was that reader that would go and buy what's out this month type thing and look through the catalogs and now my book is there! So it never gets old. It's always a really lovely feeling, I guess that's the  upside and one of the bonuses for writing just that satisfaction of seeing your book out there, but it still surprises me.

Pamela: [00:13:22] Yeah, well, that's a good thing, isn't it? I suppose once the surprise and the joy is gone, there's not much reason to really keep doing it, but you're on a roll. It's great.

Let's go back to Take Me Home.  You went to Scotland, you had this amazing trip – was that a family trip? Was it a holiday? And what was it about the place that you found so inspiring?

Karly: [00:13:42] It was a trip my husband and I took. I'd been wanting to go there for ages. I've got Scottish blood on both sides of my family, mother, and father. And we've always grown up on the stories and we've got this castle over there and everything, the family not us but the family castle.

And so that was always this big thing for a writer, your imagination goes off the Richter scale with castles and things. So I always had wanted to go. And I just recently got my husband into watching Outlander, which I've loved since the books came out 20 years ago or something, I was reading them then. And I've got him into watching the TV series of it and he just mentioned something when we were watching it about the places they filmed in, it'd be really nice to go and see these castles. So he'd pretty much not even finished speaking and I'd already had the computer out and I was showing him all these tours you can do.

 We were booked in going before he could even work out what he'd said, but we went over there and I wanted to do a bit of family research basically, and just see all the things that we'd been sort of hearing about for so long and it started from there. And once I was over there, I knew I kind of wanted to write a book about Scotland somehow.

 Wasn't till I got home that I worked out how to do it.  I took photos of everything and anything, and I was always really looking at everything because I didn't know what was going to go in a book and what wasn't. It was it was really lovely. Yeah. I just, the whole experience was just beautiful and Scotland is just the most amazing place on earth and to this day, I still don't know how it's possible to like be homesick for a place that you've only been to for a couple of weeks.

But ever since coming back, it's just like part of it is left there.  I don't know what it is. It's just amazing.  And I guess maybe for a writer, you can just see how all the mythology and the stories can be so real. Like it's just the most amazing setting. It looks like fairies would be dancing up in the hills and the little pools and things that are around. It's just the most beautiful, beautiful place.

Pamela: [00:15:45] It's a long time since I've been there. But yeah, I totally agree. And really interesting that you talk about having that sense of homesickness and that sort of innate sense of connection, almost that you felt to the places that really comes through in the book for your character, Elle, doesn't it?    She hasn't been there, but she's got this family connection and when she goes there, she really feels the sense that it's almost like home for her. 

Karly: [00:16:08] Yeah. I don't even know if it's possible for your DNA even to remember stuff or something, but I really feel like it's – no, it was very special and maybe it was because I'd had this built-up thing of wanting to be there for so long and it was everything that I ever imagined and more so I guess that all sort of combines. But it was the most amazing trip. And luckily we did it when we did, because it was the end of 2019.  Everything shut down at the beginning of 2020. Wouldn't have got done if we didn't go then. So that was very lucky!

Pamela: [00:16:37] That was perfect timing. And that interesting concept about that whole DNA thing, which is very interesting, isn't it in the whole storyline? And the other characters, of course, in the book are on, I guess, both sides of Elle's family. So, we've got her Australian family who we see her with at the beginning of the story. And of course, it's not a spoiler to say she's recently lost her much loved grandmother who actually makes an appearance in the story and quite a bit.

And I've found that that was a really interesting thread. Can you talk a little bit about how Gran's character came to you and that idea of putting her in from elsewhere?

Karly: [00:17:13] Again, I didn't really plan that to happen, but she kind of took on her little own life for me. I was sort of worrying about that when I started writing Gran that way, because I wasn't sure if that would lose me readers actually think I'd lost the plot, but it just sort of worked.

As long as I was able to make Elle question it at a lot and make it I guess a little bit skeptical, I think it works better than if she'd just come into it and it was just blindly sort of accepted. I think the circumstances behind Elle and her discovering everything about her family and herself kind of works with that aspect, as you get further into the story, it falls into place.  It wasn't something I started with, but I kind of thought it was going to either be that or take Gran and Gran was quite elderly and quite sick. And I just thought that would be more devastating if Gran died overseas and you had to leave her!

So it was basically the lesser of two evils, really. I thought what are we going to do with Gran? I had a moment of European vacation flashing through my head with the dead Gran on the roof or something. It would have been horrible. It had to work logistically too.

Pamela: [00:18:30] Definitely. And of course, there's a whole cast of characters and I loved that aspect of the book that we do get to meet her family here, but then we meet the family that she is only just meeting as we meet them.

So who did you draw on for inspiration for some of those sort of subplot characters, if you like, or that cast of characters, or were they just purely from your imagination?

Karly: [00:18:51] They were from my imagination, I guess. There's probably bits and pieces of different people in there, but I think drew on it as people I'd like to meet, that would kind of be my family if I went over there. And the whole idea I really loved about including Scotland in this was to include a lot of the real places we went to and places we stayed at and visited.

I think a lot of the inspiration for that also came from the little town and stuff. We spent a lot of time walking around and being touristy and talking to locals and stuff. And so I think some of that probably washed over into those characters a little bit, but  it was just making them as realistic as I could and likable and just the family that you'd like to meet.

Pamela: [00:19:34] Yeah, family you'd like to be a part of too, for sure. Cause they're very welcoming, aren't they, to Elle when she arrives? So were you finding yourself sort of walking down the street or going into restaurants and things, talking to people and mentally thinking, "Ooh, you're going to be a character in my book"?

Karly: [00:19:49] It was more so afterwards, in different situations, especially when I was writing in real towns that things like that would come up and I'm like, oh, I remember there was a man that did this, or the way the houses looked or the way something looks. So it was very much afterwards that I started drawing on all those sorts of memories to put them in.

But definitely loved that we met so many locals in different things and sat to talk to people. And I think that helped down the track, which I had no idea how I was going to use it all, but I'm glad I did, because it was lovely to be able to sort of use some of that real life stuff.

Pamela: [00:20:24] For sure. So apart from the fact that I guess you were writing here after having been there, but you had the photos and the memories and all that sort of thing, but did you have any particular challenges with this story or with this book?

Karly: [00:20:36] Well, like I said, I was lucky that I actually met people and I still had contacts. So if there were things that I was unsure of or terminology and stuff was another thing, like how to actually write it in when I didn't take much notice of something that I wanted to use that was handy, that I still had contacts that I could just message and say, "How would you say this?" Or "does it sound like something someone from Scotland would say?"  And surprisingly the things that I'd put in there that I'm thinking, no, that'd be sounding too Australian, they actually said, yeah, we'd say that!

Pamela: [00:21:07] Must be the DNA Karly!

Karly: [00:21:08] Dodgy was a word that I wasn't sure they used, but apparently they do. So I was happy about that. But it was nice to have that life line to sort of send out…SOS help… how does this sound? And so that was really helpful actually. And I think if I didn't have that, I could have come into a lot of issues with different things.

Pamela: [00:21:28] And did you have any Scottish beta readers Karly?

Karly: [00:21:31] Not so much to read the final thing. I actually reached out to a lady that ran a blog, I just Googled her as you do. And for the family story that Gran passes down and they talk about in the book, I wanted something that sounded really authentically Scottish and had all the pronunciations and things, and so I asked this lady, I think her blog was on different things like haunted Scotland or something and on their blog, they had lots of things that they would go and talk about old Scottish folk tales and things like that. I sent her my outline of the family story that I wanted to be told and just left all the place names and the people names blank, and just said, can you help me?

They were lovely. And she went through and made all these suggestions about names and places and that really helped.  Without that, I don't think it would have been as authentically sounding. I was really happy to get that sort of help from her.

Pamela: [00:22:28] That's great. Isn't it? The power of Google and internet research. Which brings me to my next question, Karly and I think this is something that has probably changed a fair bit since you first started as a published author and you were mentioning when you first started writing the internet wasn't really that big a thing. But social media is such a big thing for authors now, isn't it, in terms of marketing their books and connecting with readers and writing networks and things like that. How do you find that whole world of social media? Is that something that you enjoy? Do you use it a lot? How do you approach it as an author?

Karly: [00:23:02] I guess I'm not real professional at it as an author. I do have two pages and my professional page tends to sort of fall apart when it's not anything to do with a launch or anything. But I guess I just like to treat my pages as friendly pages. I'm really lucky. I don't seem to have a lot of the stuff you hear about with the nasty comments and the horrible side of Facebook but I don't seem to have any of that.

And I think it's just because you attract what you put out. People are interested if it's just something that they'd be interested in. And I get a lot of really lovely readers, a lot of friends that I've made on Facebook that I just enjoy talking to each day and reading what they're doing.  I just treat it as it's just my connection to the people that read my books and a lot of them are just friends that I've made along the way.

 I don't know if that's the way you're supposed to use it, but I feel like for me, that's what it works the best. I'm just who I am and people either want to connect with you or they don't. But I'm very lucky. I've got some lovely friends and made some lovely connections that have also come in helpful with different things with the books.

It's lovely to have a shout out every now and again and say, "Help, I want to do this..." or "what's something here...?" And it's just really lovely. It's a nice little community where you can brainstorm and do things. And it includes people. And I think they like that.

Pamela: [00:24:18] Yeah, for sure. And I think as you say, the whole thing is to use it in the way that works best for you, and to be authentic. Yeah. Well, your publisher's obviously really happy with your new sort of direction in terms of writing outside of rural Australia or including other locations and storylines. How have the readers reacted to the new book? I think you're someone who gets a fair bit of feedback from readers, and as you say, readers contacting you and connecting with you on social media, how are they reacting to the new story?

Karly: [00:24:50] I wasn't sure what the reaction would be. It's a little bit of a different thing, but so far so good, at least with my die-hard readers that seem to be really loving it, which is a relief. I haven't really seen a lot of different feedback from a lot of different places. I think it's only been a week and a half or maybe close to two weeks now. It'll be interesting to see if it reaches a different readership to my normal one, because it's a little bit more women's fiction, so that'll be interesting to see whether or not it appeals to people who might not normally read my rural fiction. So that's all sort of still not sure about that yet, because I haven't had any sort of feedback about new readers, but my loyal readers are all saying that they quite enjoy it.

So that's good.  A couple of have commented on the fact that the romance in this doesn't happen till quite late in the book. And I think they miss that because normally it's something that happens quite early on in mine and features usually most of the way through. But it was done purposely. It wasn't going to be a book that, that centered on a romance because this was Elle and her family and getting herself sorted out and what she wanted to do. And I didn't want to have a romance overshadow that. But of course, a guy popped up at the end, so I had to put him in. You can't get away from it, I don't think!

 Yeah. That has been the only thing I've noticed with my regular readers that they have picked up on the romance is a little bit different this time, but they seem to enjoy it other than that. Hopefully that's a good thing.

Pamela: [00:26:25] Well, I guess that is the difference isn't it, between rural romance as a set genre and then women's fiction. It's more about the woman's story and her evolution as a person. So if the romance comes into that at any point, then it comes in. If it doesn't, it doesn't kind of thing.  

And what about for the future Karly, are you heading along that same trajectory? Is your next book that comes out in December set in Australia or elsewhere?  What's happening with that one?

Karly: [00:26:50] Well last time I talked to my publisher, we were working on a December release and it will be a rural fiction. And then my May release time slot will probably be a women's fiction title. We're hoping to do one of each, each year. we might have to readjust that sometime because I'm not quite sure what the next one's going to be yet in the line of the women's fiction side of it, but my December one is already sorted, so that's fine.  It's a bit of adjustment for me too, because I get ideas and they come to me, but then when I start writing, they're not necessarily turning out to be women's fiction. So that's a bit of a problem. Whoops.  And I accidentally wrote a chicklit one that was supposed to be a women's fiction one. I'm still getting used to the whole ‘write a certain genre’ thing.

Pamela: [00:27:39] It's really hard, isn't it? Because really these genres are a marketing idea for the publisher and for the reader, so that the reader knows what they're getting. But in the end, it's all about writing the stories that work for you, isn't it?

Karly: [00:27:57] Well, it is. And I think I've always had that problem. Which is why I wrote so many different genres when I was starting out. I had so many different ideas and I guess that was my outlet and seeing where I've felt the most comfortable.

But even my rural fiction, I've been very lucky. My publisher does pretty much let me do whatever. And I know in those I've covered a lot of different things that you wouldn't technically probably think of as a straight rural fiction type thing. I've had small towns where bikies have come in with drugs and all sorts of different things, which are legitimately rural issues. They're not what you sort of think of in terms of a rural book, probably.

I kind of have always had that problem - I just put in stuff that I want to put in for the story to work. And if that doesn't necessarily stay true to a technical rural thing, then hopefully it works because so far, I guess they would have sort of jumped up and down about it if it was too off beat.

But I think it's just with my women's fiction at the moment I just don't know where that line is to make it women's fiction or whether I can just combine a whole heap of different things in one and just get away with it and just call it women's fiction, but it's really a lot of different things. I do have to learn to write what I'm writing, I guess, and keep it within normal perimeters. But I do struggle with that sometimes because they tend to sort of Just go off and do their own thing as I'm starting to write. And that's a bit awkward when you do need to write a women's fiction novel, not a chick lit one or not a rural one at that time. So I'm going to have to make sure I'm disciplining these characters and telling them what they should be doing. Because they don't listen to me a lot of times of the time.

Pamela: [00:29:43] I love that, pulling them into line.

Karly: [00:29:46] I can try.

Pamela: [00:29:46] Well, I guess the beauty of women's fiction, it's such a general genre and it is a wide spectrum, from as you say, like chick lit/romance to much more serious heavier topics in terms of the subject matter. So there's a whole spectrum there for you to play around with.

Karly: [00:30:06] And it's just, I guess, seeing what the reaction is from readers too whether they are happy to do that. Utimately we shall see. But it is nice to do something a little bit different, I think. As long as it's still my voice they're still going to go along with it, it's just something a little bit different. Because you don't want to pick up a book and know that it's going to be this, this and this. It's nice to sort of keep things a little bit different. And so far, I think I've done that with my rurals, but when you get to about 17 books, it's getting a bit hard not to think ‘Have I done this? Have I done that?’ So it's nice to just take a new direction every now and again.

Pamela: [00:30:43] And Karly, you do live in a rural area yourself and I can't let you go today without talking to you about your beautiful horses. Because I love to see what you're doing with your horses on Facebook. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Karly: [00:30:59] Don't get me started on my horses, you'll never get me off them! My Brumbies. I love my Brumbies. Got into Guy Fawkes Brumbies about five years ago now I was researching them for one of my books. I didn't really know anything about them to tell you the truth. I had two old horses that we had here, but I went up to an open day to meet the people that had helped me with my book and look at the Brumbies and came home with two.

And we've sort of been acquiring them ever since. But I've got my little four horse herd now, and they're just beautiful. It's just something very special about them.  These horses come off the national park and they've never seen humans never been touched, and they're just blank canvases.

I've got a horse that I bought here the first time, and she had a foal and she was a wild horse and it was quite daunting because she was in that "get away from me, I'm going to kill you" sort of stage. And then within a few months of the care and feed and loving, she's my soul horse now.

And you would never know it. Like she's so lovable and affectionate and beautiful. It's a great journey to go on and I just love it. I love my horses. Yeah, the book, I think last December's release was about Guy Fawkes horses. I've got to wait now for another opportunity to slide them into a book somewhere.

Pamela: [00:32:17] I remember actually on Facebook clearly when you went and brought those horses home and I've been following what's been happening with them. So it's lovely to see. Would you consider writing a series based on that story Karly, because you have got such a strong bond with the horses?

Karly: [00:32:32] Well the last book was sort of probably the closest I've come to writing something that was quite truthful, like how it had happened. But it is a possibility because there is so much to explore and they are just so amazing. You could work them into pretty much any kind of plot really, because I feel like I need to give the non-horsey people a bit of a break from my horses for a bit.

But yeah, it's definitely on the cards because they are a great source of inspiration and it's a real hardship to have to write while you're looking at them every day. I've only got really the one series, but It's always interesting because people often come and say, is it going to be another book?  What happens next? So yeah, a lot of the times there's plenty of room to do a second book about the horses and things. Always on the cards.

Pamela: [00:33:31] Well, it's been so lovely chatting to you, Karly. If people would like to find you online and find out more about the books, where's the best place for them to go?

Karly: [00:33:40] I'm always on Facebook, probably a little bit too much but I'm on there as Karly Lane, and there's a Karly Lane author page as well. I think I'm on I'm on Instagram, but I don't really understand how to work a lot of the other things, so Facebook is usually the best way.

Pamela: [00:33:54] And your website is karlylane.com.au.

Karly: [00:33:58] It's a new one. So hopefully that stays up this time and everyone can find it.

Pamela: [00:34:03] Oh, it's lovely. I was checking it out yesterday.  Well, all the best with Take Me Home. I hope it flies off the shelves and that you get some great feedback from readers and we look forward to your December release!

Karly: [00:34:14] Thank you very much for having me.

Pamela: [00:34:16] Thanks Karly!