Contemporary author Barbara Hannay - and A house is a home when...

What does a house or a home mean to characters in a book? With the release of my fourth book in the Swallow’s Fall series, The Turnaround Treasure Shop, I decided to go outside my four walls and ask my neighbours - authors of contemporary and historical fiction. 
Over 12 days special guest authors talk us through A house is a home when…

It's SATURDAY and I'm welcoming BARBARA HANNAY!
(And there's a giveaway too!)
And I'm having a fan-girl moment here...

"Multi award winning, bestselling author Barbara Hannay, with more than forty novels published in twenty-six languages worldwide, writes contemporary stories for Harlequin Mills&Boon, and rural romance with dual time lines that combine contemporary and historical stories for Penguin Australia."

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The Book: Moonlight Plains, available in all formats.

Character: Luke Fairburn, the contemporary hero of Moonlight Plains.

Barbara is offering one lucky commenter a chance to WIN a paperback copy of Moonlight Plains. 
(Open to Australian postal addressees only.)

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Character bio: Luke, a former cattleman from North Queensland has had a keen interest in carpentry since boyhood. Now, a qualified builder, he's restoring his grandmother's old homestead, the same homestead where his grandmother, Kitty, lived during WW2 when two US airmen crashed their plane. Little does Luke know he's about to uncover big family secrets.

The House: The old neglected homestead is set on a cattle property just outside Charters Towers. It's a classic Queenslander – a simple large rectangle with deep verandahs all round and a peaked iron roof sweeping low, like a hat brim. At the start of the book it's dilapidated with a rusted roof, peeling paint, sagging wooden shutters and broken verandah railings.

What makes a house a home for Luke?

Having a hand in the building or restoration of a home is important to Luke. Perhaps the best way to describe this is to quote an excerpt. Luke has been talking to Sally, a journalist (also his romantic heroine). 

An excerpt from Moonlight Plains by Barbara Hannay

He could hardly confess a love affair with a house to this girl. How could he explain the wonder of it? Discovering a broken-down thing of beauty and absorbing the wonderment, sensing the haunting memories of the people who'd lived there? Being gripped by a need to restore and rebuild.

Luke takes this task seriously.

'There's no value in just knocking something together and tarting it up with a coat of paint. You've got to make sure you get it right the first time. You need to make something that'll last.'

As happens in all the best romances, however, Luke has to learn that even the most beautiful building can't transformed into a home without love at its heart.

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Moonlight Plains by Barbara Hannay

The back cover blurb for Moonlight Plains by Barbara Hannay:

In 1942, as the Japanese sweep towards northern Australia and allied troops swarm into Townsville, Kitty Martin is sent inland to the safety of Moonlight Plains. But when two American airmen crash on the isolated property, she is forced to grow up fast, coming face to face with tragedy, with love . . . and with heartbreak.

Years on, and Sally Piper, a young journalist, is sent to Moonlight Plains to cover the story of a cattleman turned builder who is restoring his grandmother's forgotten homestead. Sparks fly between them, but Sally is struggling to let go of the past, and Luke has his eyes fixed firmly on the future.

What they uncover together is a shocking secret that has been kept safe for more than seventy years. Now the entire family's happiness is at stake – or does the truth about the past hold a valuable lesson for the future?

From the internationally acclaimed and award-winning romance writer Barbara Hannay comes this breathtaking novel about finding love against all the odds. It will have you captivated from beginning to end.

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I couldn’t not let you have a little bit more … so here's another excerpt from Moonlight Plains by Barbara Hannay (this time from Sally’s point of view – a journalist, and Luke's romantic heroine in Moonlight Plains):

Read the full excerpt of Moonlight Plains on Barbara’s webpage http://www.barbarahannay.com/ruralromance-moonlightplains.html

Charters Towers, 2013 

… For a moment, Kitty seemed lost in those memories, lost in the past, but her smile trembled sadly as if the memories were bittersweet. Then, with a little shake, she snapped back to the present, switching her gaze directly to Sally. ‘You could write a story about it for one of your magazines.’

‘About your love life during the war?’

Kitty made a little huffing sound of impatience. ‘About the dance, the old-time music and everything.’

‘I suppose I could . . . possibly . . .’ Sally wondered if she’d touched a nerve. It almost seemed as though the war might be a sensitive subject for Kitty. She found herself looking hard at the old lady. Her skin was crisscrossed with lines and it looked incredibly fragile, as if to touch it might leave a bruise. Her hair was thin and snow-white, but she wore it swept up into a surprisingly elegant topknot.

Sally tried to imagine how Kitty must have looked seventy years earlier, but it was impossible.

‘There’d be plenty of photo opportunities at this ball,’ Kitty prompted. ‘The uniforms and medals. The forties dresses were very elegant, you know.’

‘I guess.’ To Sally’s surprise, she could almost feel a skerrick of interest in the idea. An old-fashioned ball was not her scene, but it could, quite possibly, kill two birds with one stone. She could head off to this dance and prove to her girlfriends that she wasn’t a total social drop-out, and if she took her notebook and camera, she could make a start on resurrecting her off-and-on career as a freelance journalist.

After the recent downward trend in the mining industry, her old job as PR rep for an engineering firm had been reduced to two days a week. She’d picked up casual work, subbing and writing advertorials for the local papers, but what she really wanted was to write features. Magazines with a focus on country lifestyles were always looking for good colour stories.

She would go, Sally decided with uncharacteristic impulsiveness, which was how she found herself, two weeks later, driving a hundred kilometres west on a Friday evening to a ball in Charters Towers, dressed in no less than a precious and fragile 1940s dress of pale-pink georgette that Kitty Mathieson had unearthed and offered to her.

The dress was beautiful, with a band at the hips and triangles on the hem outlined with black beading. Sally hadn’t been sure it would fit her, as Kitty was so tiny these days, but to her surprise it was perfect and it made her feel unexpectedly glamorous.

For one night, she would put on a costume and play a new role . . .

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You'll find all the links of where to buy Moonlight Plains, and find out more about Barbara Hannay and her bestselling books over on Barbara's webpage: barbarahannay.com

Leave a comment to go into the draw to WIN a copy of Moonlight Plains
courtesy of Barbara. 
Open to Australian postal addressees only. 

Good Luck!

And pop back tomorrow to see the next of my special guest authors and discover what a house or home means to a man who is determined to live a solitary live after being held hostage by the guilt of what happened one hot and stormy summer night…

Jennie, in the company of Barbara Hannay x

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After you’ve left a comment or a question for Barbara, why not scroll down or click the links and visit previous days and maybe win a book there too:

Monday 18th: USA & Australia bestselling author Anne Gracie with The Spring Bride
Tuesday 19th: Award winning author Fiona Lowe with Truly Madly Montana
Wednesday 20th: Historical fiction author Eliza Redgold with Naked: A Novel of Lady Godiva
Thursday 21st Much loved international bestseller Rachael Johns and The Road to Hope
Friday 22nd Me! And The Turnaround Treasure Shop

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