Close to Home

7 Day Book Series.
Today I'm welcoming Pamela Cook.
(And there's a Giveaway!)

What does a house or a home mean to characters in a book?
I went outside my four walls and asked my neighbours - authors of Romantic Suspense, Historical & Contemporary Romance and Rural Romance.

Pamela Cook is a city girl with a country lifestyle and too many horses. Her rural fiction novels feature feisty women, tangled family relationships and a healthy dose of romance.

In her past life, Pamela was a secondary school English teacher. Wanting to try her hand at something more creative she enrolled in a Masters degree in creative writing, became hooked and was soon writing fiction, poetry and memoir. 

Pamela divides her time between her home in the southern suburbs of Sydney and her ‘other’ home on the south coast of NSW. When she’s not writing she wastes as much time as possible riding her handsome quarter horse, Morocco.

A House is a Home When... with Pamela Cook

The Book: Close To Home, Pamela’s third novel, was released on June 30th.  Pamela Cook is an author of Rural Fiction with Romantic Elements – “Australian Fiction With A Country Heart.”

Character: Charlie Anderson.

The Giveaway: Leave a comment and go into the draw to win a paperback copy of Close To Home. Open to Australian postal addressees only.

Who is Charlie Anderson and where does she live?

Character bio
Charlie is a 34 year old vet who works for the Department of Primary Industries (DPI). Based in Lismore, Charlie is asked by her boss to go and investigate a possible outbreak of Hendra virus in a small town on the south coast of NSW. As reluctant as she is, she takes her job seriously and so she agrees. Charlie is smart, independent and proud of what she has achieved in her career. She’s a loner to some extent and does not suffer fools easily. Orphaned at the age of 13, she has spent over half of her life wrestling with grief. There have been a few significant others in her life but no one with whom she would trust her heart.

The House
Charlie is a bit of a nomad. She rents properties wherever she has been sent to work and the one she is living in in Lismore at the start of the book is more homely than usual. It’s a timber house with a deck looking over a tropical garden. When she visits Naringup, the town where she grew up and now has been sent for work, she moves into a granny flat in the back yard of Jac Pearce, a police sergeant. It’s a quaint, cottage style building, painted mauve, with pots of lavender on the front porch. 

Pamela's other books - have your read them yet?

What makes a house a home for Charlie?

Charlie has struggled to feel at home anywhere for many years now. The short time she lived with her relatives in Naringup were not pleasant and ever since then she has lived on her own, by choice. None of the places she rents really feel like home and it isn’t until she meets Joel Drummond and his family that she realises why – a home is about the people you share the space with, not the space itself. The Drummonds make her realise what it is she’s been missing all these years – love, laughter and people to care for who care about you. 

Excerpt from Close to Home by Pamela Cook

A sea of black wings beat against the sky, fanning the dying embers of the day. Charlie Anderson settled into the worn cane chair to watch the spectacle. Impossible as it was to make out the individual anatomy of the creatures, in her mind’s eye she could see each small furry body suspended between membranes of leathery skin. The bats flew silently, saving their chatter for darkness when they would feast on the nectar of eucalyptus blossoms or the flesh of whatever exotic fruit they might find. She’d tried to count them once, but it had been a pointless exercise and she’d settled on ‘hundreds’ as a rough estimate. As twilight deepened into dusk and the last of the local colony of flying foxes disappeared she wriggled forward and picked up her wine from the wooden crate she used as a makeshift table. Her Friday night treat, a glass of crisp, cool sauvignon blanc, signalling the end of her working week.

She gave a slight shiver and rubbed at the goosebumps dimpling her bare arms. There was a chill to the evening air, a sure sign autumn was well and truly here, but she was too comfortable to move inside. Taking another sip of wine she leaned back and gazed out at the curtain of greenery cocooning the house. Another rental place, like all the others she’d lived in, but this one was something special. The perfect place to unwind. Whether it was the warm timbers of the house itself or the calm dripping from the rainforest of trees that formed the backyard, Charlie wasn’t sure, but there was a sense of peace here she’d never found anywhere else. A sense that both soothed and disturbed her in equal measure. This had been the closest she’d come to wanting to put down roots since she’d left university and yet there was still something missing.

Or someone.

Back cover blurb for Close to Home by Pamela Cook

A compelling story of love, lies and loss in a small country town.

Orphaned at thirteen, Charlie Anderson has been on her own for over half her life. Not that she minds – she has her work as a vet and most days that’s enough. Most days. But when she’s sent to a small town on the New South Wales coast to investigate a possible outbreak of the deadly hendra virus, Charlie finds herself torn between then haunting memories of her past and her dedication to the job.

Travelling to Naringup means coming face to face with what is left of her dysfunctional family – her cousin Emma, who begged Charlie not to leave all those years ago, and her aunt Hazel, who let her go without a backward glance. But it also means relying on the kindness of strangers and, when she meets local park ranger, Joel Drummond, opening her heart to the possibility of something more …

As tensions in the town rise, can Charlie let go of the past and find herself a new future in the place she left so long ago?

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I have to admit I have book cover-envy! I adore this book cover. 
And did you know that Pamela is a Writer Ambassador for Room To Read, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes literacy and gender equality in developing countries.

And, if you're a writer - or would like to be a writer, Pamela also teaches creative writing through her business Justwrite Publishing.

She's also fantastic to sit with at Romance Writers of Australia conferences when the day is almost done and we're winding down with glass of wine. Our daughters are horse-mad (and so is Pamela!) so there's always book talk or daughter talk when we do get together, which sadly isn't frequently enough.

Click on any book cover to find out more and where to buy. And find Pamela on PamelaCook.com.au 
Leave a comment to go into the draw to WIN a paperback copy of Close To Home 
(open to Australian postal addressees - and thank you, Pamela!)
Good Luck.
And pop back tomorrow to meet the next of my special guest authors and discover what a house or a home means to a character from my own book because it's release day for me tomorrow.

Jennie in the company of Pamela Cook

Leave a comment for Pamela, then visit previous days in this blog series:
Anna Campbell and maybe win a copy of Three Proposals and a Scandal.
Helene Young and maybe win a copy of Northern Heat.