Ready, set, go! If you enjoy bush stories set in Australia then 2012 is the year for you. With the increasing interest in rural based stories the publishers have been snapping up novels set in our wonderful country. The main criteria is that the books must be based mainly in the bush. There is a huge variety to choose from with authors writing about everything from the girl meets bush boy Bachelor and Spinsters Ball type scenario, to the ‘long road trip’, shocking accident and the inevitable caught between two worlds – city versus country dilemma. Add mystery, murder and suspense and of course, romance and there really is something for everyone. What a feast to choose from!

Loretta Hill kicked off the rural literature publishing year with The Girl in steel-capped boots. A fiesty novel set in the ‘in-topic’ mining industry, Loretta’s work went down a treat in January!  Next in line is popular fiction author Anne McCullagh Rennie  who has chosen Tamworth and music – a canny combination for Under Southern Skies, her fifth novel.

Today however I’m pleased to feature Bella’s Run, a debut novel by Victorian Margareta Osborn. Margareta is touring Victoria and southern New South Wales during March. She dropped by to answer ‘Four Quick Questions.’

1. Who is your favourite character in the book and why? Tricky question. It’s a toss up between Bella and Patty but I think at a push, I would have to say Patty. She is a zany and wild girl, the antithesis of me. In fact, her character was so strong I had to write her point of view out of the book because she took over from everyone else. Bella is also a favorite as she is willful, vulnerable, loyal and loving all at the same time. And I’d have to sneak in a mention of Will. He is the mountain cattleman/stockman/ cowboy (whatever takes your fancy) from heaven. Yum-my!

2. As a new author how have you found the publishing process to date? All the people at Random House have been so enthusiastic and helpful, I couldn’t have asked for better. My publisher, Beverley Cousins, is marvelous and I feel she knew the book better than I did in the finish. With Bev and another editor’s help, Bella’s Run was honed to become the vibrant novel it is.

3.What’s next on the writing front for you? I have just finished my second novel for Random House, Australia. The story centers on Leila, a farmer in the Narree valley who is charged with the responsibility of running ‘Montmorency Downs’, a property that has been in her family for 150 years. Her life is sent into disarray when she finds herself dealing with an irascible relative, a sexy wild dog trapper and a desperate-for-attention child. The novel is set along the dog fence of western NSW and in the mountains and valleys of East Gippsland, the same area featured in Bella’s Run. I love this new book. Like Bella’s Run, it has the love for the land flowing through, whilst I hope, portraying a gutsy, funny and heart-wrenching story.

4. What’s the best thing about where you live? I know everyone says this about his or her own backyard, but I truly believe we live in God’s own country. I see the magnificent vista of the Great Dividing Range every day. Twenty minutes one way and I am in the heart of the mountains, twenty minutes the other and I’m sitting on the beach. We can play in snow in the winter and water-ski all summer. East Gippsland is paradise.

 Bella’s Run – Bella Vermaelon and her best friend Patty are two fun-loving country girls bonded in a sisterhood no blood tie could ever beat. Now they are coming to the end of a road trip which has taken them from their family farms in the rugged Victorian high country to the red dust of the Queensland outback. For almost a year they have mustered on cattle stations, cooked for weary stockmen, played hard at rodeos and danced through life like a pair of wild tumbleweeds. And with the arrival of Patty’s brother Will and Bella’s cousin Macca, it seems love is on the horizon too … Then a devastating tragedy strikes, and Bella’s world is changed for ever. So she runs – from the only life she has ever known. But can she really turn her back on the man she loves? Or on the land that runs deep in her blood. Bella’s Run is a story about friendships, finding love and the place you can call home.