by Tracy Cooper-Posey – guest blogger and author of Ningaloo Nights
I’m so glad to see Love Romance Passion back up and running on their new home. I hang out here on a daily basis, and have found some interesting new-to-me authors and titles, like Jo Davis and her fabulous book When Alex Was Bad
The Internet is a fascinating place, when you really think about it. It actually doesn’t exist. There’s a term some geeks and more and more communications people use for it: “The cloud”. That’s an interesting way of referring to it because it really is a nebulous thing that you can see from a distance as a solid, attractive-looking thing, but when you get up close and personal, it really isn’t anything at all. It’s a bunch...well, okay a whole lot...well, alright, millions of computers talking to each other. That’s it. That’s all the Internet really is. Somewhere in the middle of all those computers talking is a very, very busy junction point that in our minds we’ve built into this mental image of a meeting place that we’ve come to know as the Internet – a cloud that doesn’t really exist, but feels as solid, warm and friendly as many other brick and mortar meeting places we know in our home towns. And for a lot of people, the Internet is far more warmer, safer and friendlier than our home towns. It can also be a lot more romantic. I speak from experience...I met my husband here, thirteen years ago, and moved from Australia to Canada to be with him.
I’ve never been back to Australia since I arrived here on October 4, 1996. The cost of airfares vs. a writer’s income has a lot to do with that. So when Ellora’s Cave asked me to participate in the Going Down Under series, I jumped at the chance because it was an opportunity to return to Australia at least in my imagination ...my own personal cloud, you might say. The more interesting counterpoint to that is that my office is in the basement of our house, and I wrote Ningaloo Nights during the early summer – in June, which this year was quite hot — for Alberta Canada, I hasten to add. Here, if it hits 30 degree Celsius (about 85 or 90 degree Fahrenheit) people start to talk about heat waves, which even after thirteen years of Canadian summers I still find hilarious (although I keep that to myself). Although, given that Canadian winters can drop down to 40 degrees below zero (which is actually minus 40 in Fahrenheit, too), the houses here are the mostly perfectly insulated and sealed boxes in the world. So even at a measly 30 degrees in summer, being stuck inside can be uncomfortable.
Except that in my office it’s bloody freezing, all summer long. I even have to turn on a radiant fan heater under my desk to keep my toes from dropping off, and I wear tights, too. I get strange looks from delivery people and other daily door-knockers when I answer the door wearing a sweater and tights and have my arms wrapped around me while they’re sweating on the porch. J And that was the conditions I experienced while I was writing Ningaloo Nights where the hero and heroine sweated through the 40+ Celsius dry, dry heat that I remembered from my years of living in Western Australia. I had to try and conjure up the imagery of the dazzling, flat and dusty West Australian countryside during the hottest month of the year, while I was stuck in a dark basement, while my toes were shoved up against a fan heater.
Believe it or not, I had a blast writing that book. I barely noticed my actual surroundings. I was very much living in my personal cloud. I was out driving around the Exmouth gulf territory with Mason and Sherry, soaking up that dry heat and feeling my skin bake under the sun....oh, and imagining what Mason might do to me next!
- Buy page for Ningaloo Nights http://tinyurl.com/yg4nhud
- My website: http://www.TracyCooperPosey.com
- My blog: http://www.TracyCooperPosey.com/blog (There are pics of the conference there if you’d like to see them, including me in neon pink go-go boots.)
- Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/TracyCP
Giveaway: Tracy has kindly offered the readers of LRP a chance to win an ebook copy of Ningaloo Nights. The winner can choose from one of these formats: .lit, .pdf, mobipocket, rocketbook, and html. To enter all you have to do is ask Tracy a question or leave a relevant comment. Multiple entries allowed. This contest ends October 26, 2009.
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19 comments ↓
Welcome Tracy! I’m one of those people that’s always cold, so during the winter I walk around my apartment with a scarf on. So you’re not the only one getting strange looks. The book sounds great, I’m crossing my fingers I win it!
Hi Tracy,
I can’t wait to read “Ningaloo Nights,” especially after reading it won an award for Most Erotic Use of a Chocolate Chip Cookie.
Hi Joder and Jane — thanks for the feedback!
Tracy
I’ve been seeing this book cover EVERYWHERE! At first glance, I thought it was a western (which I’ll never turn down) but was even more excited when I realized it’s Australian.
I’ve never been Down Under, but Australia was that thing I begged my parents for in junior high – I was convinced I could be an exchange student for a semester, attract myself a Mick Dundee, and live happily ever after.
Hi Tracy, love the setting. Will there be any more books that take place in Australia?
If you wanted Mick Dundee, Bonnie, then you’ll like Ningaloo Nights.
Although…you thought it was a Western? Oh dear! I wonder how many other readers have dismissed it because they thought that? I hadn’t considered that! Yikes! I guess the Akubra can be misleading…
Tracy
Good question, Cathy. To be honest, it really depends on how sales go on this one. If readers are put off by the “foreign” setting, and sales aren’t depressed (and Bonnie’s comment about the ‘western’ cover, for example, shows you how anything unusual can throw a reader for a loop), then I might try another Australian setting, perhaps one in a country town? Geraldton perhaps, then maybe one in Perth. We’ll see.
Although, in fact, this is not my first Australian-set novel DARE TO RETURN, which was published in April by Ellora’s Cave’s non-erotic imprint, Cerridwen Press, is actually set in Geraldton, which is a few hundred miles south of Ningaloo, and is where, in fact, I spent my teenage years. But, alas, it’s not filled with hot sex, like NINGALOO. But it did get a five star rating and a top pick from another review site that I can’t really mention here.
But, it IS set in Australia!
For details on DARE, here’s the page on my site: http://www.tracycooperposey.com/dare.xhtml. It’s a gorgeous cover — you can almost feel the spray from the waves!
Tracy
Most Erotic Use of a Chocolate Chip Cookie, Wow that sounds Sexy. I cant wait to read all about that!!
I love everything about Australia, I went there on a school trip. I’m looking forward to reading your book!
I have never read your books but after “Most Erotic Use of a Chocolate Chip Cookie” I am dying to give it a try!!
Hi, Tracy! When you wrote the dialogue for your sexy Aussie, did you hear that marvelous accent in your head? I would!!!
Hi Amy — where did you go for your school trip? That must have been quite a trip!
Tracy
Alicia — I’m sure you’ll find it worth the try. Thanks!
Tracy
Virginia:
Actually, no. I don’t hear the Australian accent at all. It sounds quite normal to me. Sorry! And after thirteen years in Canada, the Canadian accent sounds pretty normal to me, too — except for some of the remoter regions in the north east, and the French Canadian, of course!
So I’m afraid I didn’t “hear” the accent at all! But I *did* hear the distinct words and laid back attitude…that’s something that you don’t find anywhere else in the world.
Tracy
Hey Tracy,
I just wanted to drop by and say Hey Mate! Whose book are you currently reading? Are there any other Aussie authors whose work you’d recommend *bear in mind that I mean in the erotic romance genre
?
Happy Reading!!!
Anna Shah Hoque
s7anna@yahoo.ca
Well, Alexis Fleming has a book coming out in the Going Down Under series, too. She’s guesting on my blog on November 9. It’s another outback book, too, so you’ll like it Anna, given your love of sheep stations!
Then there’s Amarinda Jones at Ellora’s Cave — you should see her latest cover — Jack Sparrow in all his glory — yum!!
Tracy
I attribute the “western” first impression to the hat. I didn’t even see the tree at first glance – just that lovely man and his hat.
Please take me out of the hat for the book give-away! I couldn’t wait for Monday, so dug out the credit card this morning. Loved the story, went hunting for more.
Ooh, I couldn’t stand the coldness of Canada. I’d love to visit, especially Prince Edward Island, which I fell in love with while reading the Anne of Green Gables series.
I know what you mean about the heat, that’s not bad at all. I live in south Georgia and we have the worst heat known to man because not only does it get up to and sometimes above 100 it’s also extremely humid. If the heat don’t get you then the skeeters will. lol
Deidre
Giveaway update: Tracy Cooper-Posey Giveaway Winner
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