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From the desk of Stella Quinn: The inspiration behind A Snowy River Summer

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From the desk of Stella Quinn: The inspiration behind A Snowy River Summer

The tagline on the cover of A Snowy River Summer describes the book as ‘a feel-good story about dreams and determination, tenacity and tractors and, of course, finding love’.

I thought I’d share with you some of the feel-good, some of the dreams and determination and explain why tractors make such a great stand-in for a loyal bloke when you live in a small country town.

Kylie Summer has started a new year determined to only make good decisions from now on. Her hard-won mechanic business is having a cashflow crisis, and she’s having a loneliness crisis. Her best friend just got married and it’s been months—years, maybe—since a single, suitable bloke was spotted in the small town of Hanrahan.

But then a man turns up. From the city. And he has bad decision written all over him, which Kylie would totally be able to turn away from if he wasn’t just so darned adorable. She’s going to need to dig deep to avoid temptation, and that’s where tractors come in.

Specifically, her vintage tractor Trev.

Turns out, an author can’t just lob a tractor into a novel without spending a little time researching them and finding out why such events as the town of Wombat’s Tractor Pull is such a crowd pleaser, and why old-timers are often featuring in Australian country news stories with their restored vintage tractors such as in this article.

My tractor research led me to a wonderful book, Going Round the Bend in Search of Old Tractors, by Ian M Johnson, and what a delight it was to read about the many passionate tractor collectors he interviewed. What struck me about the tractors was their longevity, and what struck me about the collectors was the longevity of their passion. Their commitment. Restoration projects might take decades, and yet the collectors remained unwavering in their devotion to these robust, hardworking machines. The symbolism wrote itself: a tractor had every quality Kylie might think she needed in a man.

Here is a photo of one of the tractors I interviewed as I wrote the book:

One of my new tractor mates

Of course, then she meets Damon. The bad decision. The man who’s feeling low on commitment and endurance and hard work. Plotting their get-together amidst this conflict between what Kylie needs (Trev) and what turns up (Damon) was quite a journey!

And now for the feel-good. What gives a rural romance story that feel-good vibe? Of course it’s the characters, who must be relatable but who we must worry for, who must be adorable and yet misguided. But it’s also the layering up of story elements that give the story that small-town feel.

Food is one such element. The Picnic in a Vineyard business, the butterscotch-filled doughnuts that are Kylie’s favourite at the local café, even the butter that Alfie the overweight labrador is addicted to and keeps flogging from the kitchen counter. I had a crack at making butterscotch doughnuts myself to see what all the fuss was about, and—yes—yum!

Setting is another element. I have a love of Federation buildings in Australian country towns, and whenever I see a lovely building, or a flowering shrub on a street corner, or, for much of this story is set in a small-scale vineyard, a country vista with grapes on trellises, I take photos so I can use them for inspiration when I am describing where my characters live and work.

Tenacity is at the heart of both Kylie’s and Damon’s stories in A Snowy River Summer. I didn’t really have to research tenacity, because I, like all of us, have had to dig deep at various times in my life to persevere even when it’s been crushingly difficult. But as I was researching this book, I was invited out to a start-up winery in the Scenic Rim region of Southern Queensland to join in on a planting day as a new field had been prepared for new rootstock. Seeing the work done, the trellises stretching up and back across fields, the machinery in the shed, the exhaustion of the owners, and hearing the devastating news that a disease had been found in their crop … heartbreaking stuff! For Kylie and Damon, the heartbreaking stuff happens on the pages, and they’ll have to show just as much tenacity if they want to have any chance of making it to a happy ending.

sample of the rootstock we planted

I also love the idea of Kylie being a very practical young woman who is determined to make her life work the way she wants it to, rather than just be a dandelion puff ball floating about wherever fair winds or stormy weather take her. I think us women are practical, and determined, and I love the idea that we can do whatever we want to so long as we are prepared to put in some hard work and have some failures on the way. This is very much my attitude to DIY, as it happens. My thinking is: if there’s an online tutorial on something, then I can have a crack. In my own Kylie-inspired practical journey, as I was writing this book I changed a washer in a leaky tap, built an orchid house (with cemented-in posts, even), dismantled a wardrobe and restored the floor and ceiling behind it and replaced the driver’s side doorhandle in kid #2’s ancient hatchback.

Stella being practical

I think I mentioned Alfie the ageing labrador with the butter addiction. For veracity, I interviewed my “grand-dog” Angus on his views on butter (he’s a fan) and on diets (heck no) and on whether it really was a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a great bed should be in want of a large smelly dog to share it with (truth).

photo of interviewee Angus who’d very much like to be overweight

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stella Quinn

Stella Quinn has had a love affair with books since she first discovered the alphabet. She lives in sunny Queensland now, but has lived in England, Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea. Boarding school in a Queensland country town left Stella with a love of small towns and heritage buildings (and a fear of chenille bedspreads and meatloaf!) and that is why she loves writing rural romance. Stella is a keen scrabble player, she’s very partial to her four kids and anything with four furry feet, and she is a mediocre grower of orchids. An active member of Romance Writers of Australia, Stella has won their Emerald, Sapphire and Valerie Parv Awards, and finaled in their R*BY Romantic Book of the Year award.

Don’t miss A Snowy River Summer – coming in March 2025!

Get the book here

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