Lovely article in the Coffs Coast Independent

Here's the link to the article in the Coffs Coast Independent this week. http://www.coffscoastindependent.com.au/news/local/news/general/drawing-on-a-familiar-landscape/2551340.aspx

Drawing on a familiar landscape

BY VANESSA ALMOND

10 May, 2012 12:00 AM

BESTSELLING author and Mid North Coast resident Karly Lane is coming to the Coffs Harbour Library to talk about her new novel Morgan's Law.

Ms Lane is not only an accomplished writer, she is also a very proud local who uses our unique local area as inspiration for her highly successful fiction.


Vanessa Almond caught up with Mrs Lane to chat about her latest release.


Vanessa Almond: You've just received the first copies of your new book 'Morgan's Law', and it's due to hit the shops any day now. You must be so excited?


Karly Lane: I really am. It's such a long process that it seems to take ages for it to get here! But now that it's here I can't wait to start seeing it in the shops.


VA: Some of the places in Morgan's Law are based on actual locations in Macksville and Bowraville?


KL: They are. In a lot of my books I picture places or buildings I'm familiar with. The pub in Morgan's Law is a bit of a combination of the bottom pub at Bowraville and the Star hotel in Macksville. In other books I have a firm picture of Bowraville main street in mind when I'm writing. That's the beauty of reading though ? everyone imagines a character or a place as something different. And the cool thing about that, is that it doesn't matter! Reading is all about using your imagination.


VA: How long have you lived in Macksville?


KL: I moved back to Macksville about seven years ago. My parents were born and raised here, but we moved all over the state while I was growing up, however Macksville/Bowraville has always been our home base.


VA: You spent the majority of your childhood in Bowraville, where your grandparents had a farm. What is your favourite memory of that time?


KL: I'd have to say the making of The Umbrella Woman would be a stand out memory! I had (and still have) the biggest crush on Bryan Brown! I can't imagine a more exciting thing to happen during school holidays than going into town and watching a movie being filmed! My younger brother was even asked to be an extra and I must admit I was slightly peeved that Bryan didn't come up and ask me...oh well...

VA: What do you love most about the area?


KL: I love that we have coast on one side, farmland on the other, bushland and pockets of rain forest scattered throughout, it's such a contrast of different environments all in the one area.


VA: How does it feel to open up a box of fresh books and see your work in print?


KL: It's very surreal. When I first saw my book in print, I went into automatic reader mode - I ohhed and ahhed over the cover and read the blurb and then I realised, hang on...this is my book! It's like Christmas and birthdays and a dream come true all wrapped up in one.


VA: As well as an author, you're a wife and a mum of four, and you also have a 'day job'. How on earth do you find the time to write?


KL: I wrote six books in a three year time frame with four kids at home and working part time. Looking back now it seems crazy! But you just make the time to write. It was tricky sometimes, but I'd stay up and write late at night and get up early before the rest of the house woke up. It can be done. But the biggest bonus is during cricket season - I get guaranteed guilt free writing time while my husband was busy watching it on TV.


VA: You've said that being a mum and writing stories set in beautiful rural Australia are your two favourite things. Do you have any plans for a third book?


KL: I've actually got another book coming out in December - the publishers surprised me and are putting out two books this year which is really rare. I'm also in the beginning stages of another book which at this stage might be a follow on from North Star.


VA: Any advice to aspiring local authors?


KL: The only way to become a better writer is to keep writing and finding a writers group that fits you. For me, joining the Romance Writers of Australia was the turning point of my career. Don't let the name put you off! Even if you write in a genre that isn't wholly romance - they are an amazing source of information and support. Other than that, don't give up and don't make excuses that you can't find the time.


Karly Lane will talk about her new book 'Morgans Law' at Coffs Harbour City Library on Tuesday, May 15 at 5.30pm for a 6pm start. Bookings are essential on 6648 4900.

 

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Write Note review

I was sent this link to a beautiful review of Morgan's Law by Monique Mulligan. Check out some of her other reviews-   http://www.writenotereviews.com/m-o.html What a great site.

Thank You Monique- you're beautiful review made me cry! In case the link disappears- here's the review below.

 

Morgan’s LawAuthor: Karly Lane
Arena RRP $29.99
Review: Monique Mulligan

“It tends to shock children to realise their mothers are also women, even though they’ve given up their name to become plain old Mum.” (Carmel Morgan in Morgan’s Law).

As I get older I am learning more about my mother as a woman, a girl, a dreamer, a sister and a daughter, rather than just “Mum” (or Sausage, as she is affectionately known). A similar discovery is what surprises London-based career woman Sarah Murphy when she makes a quick trip to Negellan, a small farming community in Queensland to scatter her beloved Gran’s ashes.

For Sarah, a break from her London life is just what she needs, even if Negellan is an unlikely place for a high-flying executive to unwind. She is visiting the town simply to follow through on her grandmother’s last, albeit mysterious, wish – to have her ashes scattered under the Wishing Tree. What she doesn’t count on is that her actions will cause trouble in more ways than one.

It doesn’t take long for her enquiries about her grandmother to cause disquiet in the town, particularly within the powerful Morgan family. Nor does it take long for an attraction to develop between Sarah and local farmer, Adam. And strangely, the girl from the city soon finds herself drawn to the battling community that for some reason is connected to her grandmother. Sarah is soon faced with a number of choices, but will she make the right ones?

There’s more than meets the eye in Morgan’s Law. Author Karly Lane skilfully interweaves a young woman’s hopes and dreams, the search for family roots and self-discovery with romance and mystery in an embattled rural setting. The setting adds depth because it allows issues facing such communities to be given a voice - suicide, depression, hardship are all under the surface, but very real. The community becomes more than just a place or a setting; it is alive and evolving, adding to the story's believability.

On the surface this appears to be a story about a young woman who is prompted to ask herself a big question in life: What do I want out of life? The journey to self-awareness was not one Sarah intended to make, but she finds herself along for the ride nonetheless. I liked Sarah. She’s the right mix of feisty and kind, and I wanted everything to work out for her. She has been affected by her touchy relationship with her mother, but as Sarah finds out more about her grandmother, the reader is left with a sense that Sarah’s discoveries will benefit this relationship.

On another level, Morgan’s Law is not just about Sarah’s hopes and dreams, but those of her gran, and to a lesser extent, other minor characters such as Tash and Ruth. Not to mention the hopes of an entire community which, rapidly fading, are soon buoyed by new ideas.

As a love interest for Sarah, Adam’s quiet strength hit the spot and I enjoyed vicariously observing their growing romance. Their story sweetly overlaps with a long-ago romance, effectively bringing closure to the past. Initially Sarah is unwilling to label the situation as more than ‘lust’, but the reader knows that it’s a front; with everything she thought she knew about her gran suddenly changing, as well as unwanted questions intruding her thoughts about her life’s direction, she needs some way to maintain control.

Once I started reading, I found Morgan’s Law hard to set aside. Much more than a rural romance, the combination of compelling plot, suspense and great writing held my interest through to the end; my only gripe was with the final chapter, which seemed a bit rushed and not entirely realistic in the way it played out. That said, and without wanting to spoil things, the plot outcome was all good, so this is forgivable; all’s well that ends well. This was my first Lane novel and it won’t be my last.

Morgan’s Law is available from good bookstores and Allen & Unwin

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My love affair with rural life

http://bookdout.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/aww-feature-karly-lane-and-rural-australia/
This was a lovely interview done for Book'd Out a fantastic blog that reviews and talks about books with a passion. Please drop by and check out some of their other fantastic reviews and interviews.

AWW Feature: Karly Lane and Rural Australia

02 May 2012 2 Comments

by shelleyrae @ Book'd Outin Australian Reading, Australian Women Writers Feature 2012, Author Interview/Guest Post, ★★★★, Chicklit & Romance, Fiction, Provided by Publisher, The Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012

Welcome Karly Lane!

Karly Lane lives on the beautiful Mid North Coast of NSW in Australia. A certified small town girl, she is most happy in a little town where everyone knows who your grand parents were. A wife and mother of four children, working part time as a pathology collector by day, she manages to squeeze in her writing whenever and however she can. She writes women’s fiction – everything from romantic suspense to family sagas and life in rural Australia. North Star (READ MY REVIEW) was a 2011 finalist in the Australian Romance Reader Awards and Morgan’s Run (READ MY REVIEW) is available from today by Allen & Unwin. . Karly also has romantic suspense titles published with The Wild Rose Press and Eternal Press under Karlene Blakemore-Mowle.
I’ve been asked why do you write rural fiction?
I guess the simple answer is that it’s what I know. I’m not a farmer and I don’t live on a sprawling property. I’m just a small town girl who loves rural Australia. My stories, although they may take place on a property, aren’t about the day to day life of a working farm or the trials and tribulations that go hand in hand with that lifestyle.
The real story is about a community and that connection the character has with the town and their past.
I’ve been incredibly lucky in my life to have experienced a variety of small rural towns. As a child we moved every few years and up until the last five or six years of my adult life I continued to move around the countryside. I feel privileged to have experienced a lifestyle so many other people in this world simply don’t have the opportunity to live.
From the tropics of far north Queensland, to the isolated beauty of Mt Isa, with its colourful characters and mining, down to the sheep and crop farming of central NSW and back to the lush dairy farming and pockets of sub-tropical rainforest that run along the gorgeous Mid North Coast of NSW. The one thing they all have in common is community.
But the unescapable reality is that rural towns are a dying breed.
You only have to take a look through your local museum to discover your quiet little main street once supported six hotels, two large department stores and four or five different banks! Unheard of for most rural towns in Australia now days—you’re lucky to find even one branch in most places. But communities even in the smallest of towns are a force to be reckoned with.
You only have to look at all the devastation that’s been happening in regional Australia over the last few years. Whole towns being inundated with floodwater—homes destroyed, precious keepsakes and belongings ruined…people displaced with only the soggy clothing on their backs. One thing shines out brightly amongst all this despair—communities are at their best in times of hardship. They pull together and they help each other.
When I began writing Morgan’s Law I wasn’t sure where my plot was going. But once I sketched in the bare bones of the small fictional town of Negallan, characters began to pop out of the woodwork and this ‘fictional’ town suddenly took on a life of its own.
Negallan had once been a thriving country town. Now it was dying. When the cotton gin closed down several years earlier, it took with it the livelihood of a large portion of the population. As in most rural places, industry is the back bone of a community, whether it be farming, mining, tourism or other—the slightest disruption to that industry causes a ripple effect that goes through the whole community.
Suddenly there are no jobs. People are forced to leave town and find work elsewhere. With families leaving town, student numbers drop from small schools and those schools lose teachers. In extreme cases—the whole school may close. Real estate slumps, small businesses close down…all this and more happened to Negallan, but the community wasn’t just going to lie down and die quietly. They rallied for one last fight.
In my research I tracked down many interesting and inspirational people who’ve fought hard to save their little communities from dying. I have only admiration and respect for these people. Maybe it comes down to that cheering for the under dog thing.
One little town that’s making a noise is North Star, the town I based the name of my first book on. This little town has started the long process of reclaiming their community. They’re working hard to secure their towns future by addressing the issues that are important to them, like education, safer roads and town beatification to attract tourists who at the moment, drive right past them. Check out their webpage and take a look.

It’s heartening to see many places are making the push to bring in new ‘blood’ by offering cheap accommodation, with local councils adding incentives to entice people to their towns. Others have joined forces to create cooperatives and taken back control of their communities.
It’s a battle that’s been raging for a long time and will no doubt continue to do so. Small towns are disadvantaged when it comes to getting representation and action against many larger city issues, however as long as a town has a community—there’s always hope, and there will always be people willing to stand together and face whatever comes their way.
This is why I write rural fiction. Real life, every day heroes!

 

 

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Things that make your heart sing!!!

http://bookdout.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/review-morgans-law-by-karly-lane/

02 May 2012

by shelleyrae @ Book'd Outin Australian Reading, Australian Women Writers Feature 2012, Author Interview/Guest Post, ★★★★1/2, Chicklit & Romance, Contemporary, Fiction, Provided by Publisher, The Australian Women Writers Challenge 2012

Title: Morgan’s Law
Author: Karly Lane
Published: Allen & Unwin May 2012
Synopsis: When Sarah Murphy returns to Australia she desperately needs a break from her high-powered London life. And though mystified by her grandmother’s dying wish for her ashes to be scattered under ‘the wishing tree’ on the banks of the Negallan River, she sets out to do just that. While searching for the wishing tree, Sarah stays in the small township of Negallan. It’s there that she finally has some time to relax and unwind, there that she finds herself drawn to a handsome local farmer, and there that she discovers her enquiries about her grandmother are causing disquiet within the powerful local Morgan family. Will the Morgans prevent Sarah from discovering the truth about her grandmother? And should she risk her glittering career in the UK for a simpler existence in the country, and the possibility of true love?
Status: Read from April 28 to 29, 2012 — I own a copy {Courtesy Allen & Unwin}
My Thoughts:

Karly Lane’s debut novel, North Star was nominated as a People’s Choice finalist by the Australian Romance Readers Association and chosen as one of the fifty books for Australia’s annual Get Reading Campaign in 2011. As a writer of the increasingly popular genre affectionately known as ‘chook lit’ Morgan’s Law, Lane’s second book, is sure to be greeted with deserved enthusiasm.

Morgan’s Law is a story of self discovery, family roots, romance, mystery and rural life. Sarah Murphy can’t imagine what ties her grandmother had to a dying farming community like Negallan but takes some time off from her high powered, London based career in advertising to carry out her beloved grandmothers last wishes, to scatter her ashes beneath the Wishing Tree on the Negallan River. Sarah anticipates only an overnight stay in Negallan, she certainly doesn’t intend to share a bathroom for long, but her plan is thwarted when a broken water pump leaves her stranded in the town for a few weeks. As Sarah searches for the Wishing Tree, and some answers about her Gran’s mysterious past, she is surprised to find herself warming not only to the battling community, but also handsome local farmer, Adam Buchanan. Yet Sarah can’t imagine the dusty, failing town of Nagellan could ever become ‘home’ and when her dream job beckons she makes a difficult choice, will it be the right one?
There is a depth to Morgan’s Law that I wasn’t really expecting and very much enjoyed. The main plot concerns Sarah’s discovery of what she really wants from her life, whether her high pressure career is worth all the things she has to give up to maintain it, which is a valid question for many women today. I found Sarah very likeable and her conflicts believable. Her difficult relationship with her mother added texture to her personality as does the sudden appearance of her ex-boyfriend and occasional communication with her colleagues in London.
Two mysteries create subplots, one having to do with the identity of Sarah’s Gran, the other is raised later in the novel when Sarah unwittingly stumbles upon a clandestine meeting in the bush. Both add just the right touch of intrigue to the story.
Underpinning the story arcs is a sensitive portrayal of the social issues such as depression, suicide, elitism and financial hardship that affect rural communities. Lane’s fictional town is representative of many regional areas that are under pressure but fighting with admirable spirit to stay alive. The township of Nagellan has a personality of it’s own in this novel and I found myself with as many hopes for it as I had for it’s characters.
The romantic element of Morgan’s Law is well handled, the attraction between Sarah and Adam has some time to smoulder before it ignites and when it does, it is believable. While Adam is sure about what he wants, Sarah is less so and the ambivalence creates just enough conflict to keep things interesting without overwhelming the plot.
The pacing is good, I was reluctant to put down Morgan’s Law once I had started reading. **possible spoiler**I did think though that Sarah’s sixteen month absence was a bit of a stretch though.
I like Lane’s writing style and the dialogue is a real strength with some great lines that showcase Lane’s laconic sense of humour. I even made a note of my favourite, which is something I rarely do, so I think it deserves a mention. In this scene Sarah is speaking with Adam about her ex boyfriend.

“…when you think a guy is some knight in shining armour, he ends up being a moron in tinfoil.” (p84)

Morgan’s Law is an entertaining and engaging read with wide appeal and topical relevance. The author proves herself as an accomplished storyteller with Morgan’s law and I expect that Karly Lane has a bestseller on her hands.

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