How Australian should I make my books?

By Narelle Atkins 

Manly Beach, Sydney, Australia

I recently received a rights reversion for my six Heartsong contemporary romance books that were published in 2014 and 2015. These books were traditionally published in the USA, and all of the stories have Aussie characters in an Australian setting. I'll be independently publishing the six backlist titles in print and ebook.  

I also have a new Aussie Christmas novella releasing soon in an Aussie-themed box set. My novella is currently with my freelance editor, Iola Goulton, for copyediting. (As an aside: Congrats to Iola for winning the ACFW Genesis Contest in the Novella category on the weekend!) 

The copyediting stage is when the decisions are made regarding grammar and spelling. For my books that were traditionally published, the final decision was made by my publisher. My target audience was primarily North American readers, and as a result my books contained American grammar and spelling. I also used a number of American rather than Australian terms and phrases that were familiar to American readers. For example, an Australian footpath became a sidewalk.

For my upcoming Aussie box set, our group of authors have chosen to use the Australian spelling of 'mum' instead of 'mom' in our stories. If you've ever heard an Aussie talk, you'll recognise the strong 'u' pronounciation in our accent when we say 'mum'.

There are a few Aussie phrases that don't translate to an American audience. In 2014 I wrote a post for our blog on writing for a North American audience. The post covered many of the common words and phrases that could trip up an unsuspecting international writer.

As an indie author, I have the final say over the copyediting of my indie books. This is both liberating and a little bit scary. I'm going to revamp my Heartsong books and potentially make a few changes to enhance the Aussie flavour in my stories. I'll change 'mom' to 'mum', and update the spelling in my other two indie novellas. 'Harbour' instead of 'harbor' is another change I'm considering because I mention Sydney Harbour and the Sydney Harbour Bridge landmarks in many of my books.

Last month ICFW blogger Patricia Beal wrote an insighful post on foreign settings in Christian fiction. The reality is the large majority of Christian fiction books (both traditionally and indie published) are set in the USA. Christian fiction readers are used to reading American stories rather than stories set in exotic locations.

Do you like reading foreign setting books that have a strong local flavour? Do unfamiliar words and phrases distract you from the story? I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences.        

A fun loving Aussie girl at heart, NARELLE ATKINS was born and raised on the beautiful northern beaches in Sydney, Australia. She has settled in Canberra with her husband and children. A lifelong romance reader, she found the perfect genre to write when she discovered inspirational romance. Narelle's contemporary stories of faith and romance are set in Australia.

Website: http://www.narelleatkins.com

Blog: http://narelleatkins.wordpress.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NarelleAtkinsAuthor

Twitter: @NarelleAtkins https://twitter.com/NarelleAtkins

Introducing Sapphire Bay (plus Seaside Proposal book giveaway)

By Narelle Atkins

Seaside Proposal, my sixth and final book with the Heartsong Presents line, released last week. Although Seaside Proposal is the third book in my Sydney series, the story opens in the fictitious town of Sapphire Bay. I love creating fictitious settings because my imagination isn’t limited by real life geography.

Tathra Beach, on the NSW South Coast, Australia.

Sapphire Bay is a small seaside town on the South Coast of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. It’s located south of Sydney on the Princes Highway. Named in 1920 after the Prince of Wales who later became King Edward VIII, the scenic coastal highway connects Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s two largest cities. The South Coast region is a bit of a hidden gem, and not necessarily on the radar for interstate and overseas visitors. A major inland highway is the most direct route between Sydney and Melbourne.

Manly Beach in Sydney, Australia.

Zach and Billie, my hero and heroine in Seaside Proposal, are both from the pretty harbor and beachside suburb of Manly on Sydney’s northern beaches. They are temporarily living and working in Sapphire Bay, and the nearby larger fictitious town of Riverwood, for very different reasons. Despite living near the water in Sydney, they discover the lifestyle in Sapphire Bay and Riverwood is quite different to their suburban home. The pace of life is more relaxed, there’s no rush hour traffic, and the beaches aren’t crowded during summer.

BILLIE RADCLIFFE HAS A SECRET

And she isn’t sharing it with anyone, including Zach Montford. Even though she feels an instant connection with the good-looking banker and youth leader, she’s wary of rejection. Besides she’s only in the close-knit beach community until she meets the one man who can fill in the blanks about her history.

Zach hopes his temporary stint with the church will help him decide whether to go into full-time ministry. Though his career plans are uncertain, he’s sure about his growing feelings for Billie. When a shocking revelation throws everything into question, Zach and Billie have a chance to put the past to rest…and walk into the future together.


In June I’m independently releasing a novella set in Sapphire Bay. His Perfect Catch, a spin off story from Seaside Proposal, is one of nine contemporary Christian romance novellas in SPLASH! The box set is available for preorder on Amazon Kindle for 99 cents.

Today I’m giving away a print copy of Seaside Proposal (worldwide, wherever The Book Depository delivers) to a reader who leaves a comment on this post and enters the Rafflecopter giveaway.

Do you like to write or read stories set in fictional places? Or, do you prefer stories set in real life locations? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Hometown Settings plus book giveaway

By Narelle Atkins

I enjoy reading books that are set in places where I’ve lived or visited. I grew up on the northern beaches in Sydney, Australia, and I’ve always loved reading books set in Sydney. I’ve even read books in genres I don’t usually read because they’re set in Sydney.

Sydney, Australia

Reading is a sensory experience and writers use the five senses to draw us into their story. For example, we can dig our bare toes into the soft sand at Manly Cove and look out at the beauty of Sydney Harbour. We can smell the salty sea air, touch the refreshing cool water that’s lapping into shore, taste the deep fried fish and chips we’re eating while sitting on the beach, and hear the squawking from the seagulls hovering around us, hoping we’ll share our dinner with them. 

Manly Cove, Sydney, Australia

These little details can add a richness to the story setting, and trigger our memories if we’ve visited the setting in real life. Writers who know their setting can add details to deepen the authenticity of their story.

Manly ferry docked at Circular Quay in the city

Her Tycoon Hero is the first book I wrote when I started writing, back in 1998. I was living in Sydney at the time and I sometimes wrote longhand on the Manly ferry. There’s a scene in the early chapters of the book with my characters, Ryan and Cassie, travelling to the city on the Manly ferry. I wrote the first draft of that scene while sitting on the Manly ferry, drinking coffee and experiencing the turbulence and rocking as the ferry passed by the entrance to the harbor between North and South Head. 

Cassie Beaumont Believes in Second Chances

Set on proving to everyone that she's no longer a party girl, Cassie is focused on her career as an event planner. But her dad's top executive, Ryan Mitchell, proves to be a handsome distraction. Especially when someone from Cassie's wild past tries to get her tangled in the life she's worked hard to escape. 

Ryan is taken with his boss's beautiful daughter. But having been fooled by a brother who ran in her same circles, he is slow to trust. When Cassie's newfound faith works its way into his heart, Ryan soon finds he wants to claim both her faith and Cassie as his own.

NARELLE ATKINS writes contemporary inspirational romance and lives in Canberra, Australia. She sold her debut novel, set in Australia, to Harlequin's Love Inspired Heartsong Presents line in a 6-book contract. Her debut book, Falling for the Farmer, was a February 2014 release, followed by The Nurse's Perfect Match in May 2014, The Doctor's Return in August 2014, Her Tycoon Hero in November 2014, Winning Over the Heiress in February 2015, and Seaside Proposal in May 2015.

Narelle blogs regularly with Australasian Christian Writers and Inspy Romance. http://australasianchristianwriters.blogspot.com/ 
http://www.inspyromance.com/ 

She is also a co-founder of the Australian Christian Readers Blog Alliance (ACRBA).
http://acrba.blogspot.com/ 

Website: http://www.narelleatkins.com
Blog: http://narelleatkins.wordpress.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NarelleAtkinsAuthor
Twitter: @NarelleAtkins https://twitter.com/NarelleAtkins

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Have you read many books set in your hometown or city? Or, written a book set in your hometown? I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences. 

To celebrate the official release of Her Tycoon Hero in ebook format this weekend and November 3 in print, I'm giving away one print copy (worldwide, wherever The Book Depository delivers) to a reader who leaves a comment on this post and enters the Rafflecopter giveaway below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An unexpected outcome

Early last year, I received a friend request on Facebook from someone whose name had been mentioned to me by a mutual friend. This mutual friend had given my new Facebook friend Jo a copy of my memoir Soul Friend for Christmas and she had apparently loved it. Jo and I conversed briefly via Facebook from time to time as she began sending me little comments about my weekly blogs and I soon saw we were on the same wavelength in so many ways. At one stage, she told me how, after reading Soul Friend, she decided to check out some of the books I had quoted or referred to there. Then from time to time, she would post little snippets she particularly liked from these on Facebook and I would always click the ‘Like’ button! It was uncanny how many of the passages she chose were my favourites too!

Recently, I read on Facebook that she and her husband had purchased a beautiful property in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney be used for holidays and retreats and had named it ‘Dadirri’. From the photos, I could see it was a large, tastefully furnished house, surrounded by trees and close to excellent bushwalks. Then just yesterday, Jo messaged me to tell me the story of how this beautiful home had become theirs and why they had chosen the name ‘Dadirri’.

It turned out that she and her husband had long wanted to buy such a property and make it available for retreats for those seeking to be quiet and be refreshed by God. Then one day last year, after stumbling across this house and noting it was for sale, Jo sat down to continue reading the book Lost in Wonder by Esther de Waal—one of those I had quoted in my own book Soul Friend. There she discovered the word ‘dadirri’, an Australian Aboriginal word for deep silence or ‘the open-eyedness of someone who explores where he or she has always belonged’ (p 43) and read how the Christian aboriginal artist, Miriam-Rose Ungummer, describes it ‘tapping into a deep spring that is within us all’. This confirmed to Jo and her husband that God intended them to have that particular property and that its name was to be ‘Dadirri’.

They immediately made an offer and the owners asked to meet them. Jo and her husband discovered this elderly couple were Christians and were having a hard time letting their beautiful property go. But on hearing that Jo and her husband were also Christians, the owners were overjoyed and the deal was soon done.

Jo purposely shared this story with me to show me how my little book had played such a vital part in her family’s dream of seeing a retreat house become reality. Through Soul Friend, she discovered Lost in Wonder. And from that book came the wonderful, meaningful name they chose—‘Dadirri’. A further lovely aside to this story is that my own dear ‘soul friend’ Joy, who inspired my book, lives in the Blue Mountains herself, not far from where ‘Dadirri’ is located!

May this story encourage and inspire you all, as you begin another writing year. When we commit our books to the Lord, be they fiction or non-fiction, God can certainly use them in wonderful and unique ways we could never ever have dreamt up in any plot!

Jo-Anne Berthelsen lives in Sydney but grew up in Brisbane. She holds degrees in Arts and Theology and has worked as a high school teacher, editor and secretary, as well as in local church ministry. Jo-Anne is passionate about touching hearts and lives through both the written and spoken word. She is the author of six published novels and one non-fiction work, Soul Friend: the story of a shared spiritual journey. Jo-Anne is married to a retired minister and has three grown-up children and three grandchildren. For more information, please visit www.jo-anneberthelsen.com or www.soulfriend.com.au.

Re-discovering the writer within

Over the past few weeks, I have finally been able to enjoy some uninterrupted hours of writing, to my great glee. At one stage, I ‘holed up’ for a few days at our daughter’s unit in western Sydney while she was away and put some serious effort into my current novel – my sixth. I didn’t care that Sydney was in the middle of a terrible heatwave. I put the air conditioning on for disgustingly long periods and barely opened the curtains, let alone the doors. I forgot about the ‘real world’ out there – apart from the occasional break to watch the Australian Open Tennis on TV! I ate simple meals when I wanted – anything quick and easy so I could get back to my writing. And in the process, I discovered all over again what it feels like to immerse oneself in this whole creative process called writing.

Recently I read an interesting comment about this writing process made by English born Australian author Elizabeth Jolley:

There is a terrible restlessness that accompanies writing. It is a prowling in the heart and the mind and the body. It is a kind of pain, a mixture of elation and a melancholy for which there is no remedy.

I wonder if you can relate to these feelings she has described? I certainly can. Just last week, I finally finished the novel – well, the first draft at least! I had wanted to get to these final chapters for so long, but I found that even though I loved the whole process, I was strangely restless. I would physically have to move after every few sentences, perhaps getting up to stretch or walk around the room. I wanted to shift my characters forward, to have them say and do the things they obviously wanted to – but on the other hand, I somehow wanted to relish the moment, to hold onto them and not to close off their options. And I most certainly did not want to say goodbye to them! What would I do without these characters in the back of my mind, working through their various dilemmas?

And I also experienced the very real elation and melancholy that Elizabeth Jolley talks about. I was exultant at various stages as I began to weave the final threads of my novel together. Wow – this particular character really is going to make some wise decisions in his life! Oh, this other one has expressed herself so well there! And I never thought the conversation between those two characters would take that particular turn! At times, it seemed I was being carried along on a wave of inspiration, simply enjoying the ride. Yet at others, my experience was the exact opposite. I would sit staring at a sentence I had just created, changing this word and that, before deleting it entirely. I would puzzle over how on earth I could move the characters through the impasse they had reached in a way that would not sound unrealistic or trite. And I would read over my previous paragraphs with a sinking heart, wondering if I was completely wasting my time. Was I writing rubbish after all? Would anyone ever want to read this? Perhaps I should scrap the whole novel altogether.

And yet here I am, having survived another perilous journey of writing a novel. I have finished that first draft – and whatever the stops and starts and highs and lows, I would not have missed the experience for the world! And I have stayed the course, I believe, because God has been with me every step of the way, urging me on, helping me persevere, giving me inspiration, comforting me, reminding me that he has gifted me and called me to write.

And that’s all that matters really.

How about you? Do you resonate with Elizabeth Jolley’s words above? Does your writing journey resemble my crazy one in any way?

Jo-Anne Berthelsen lives in Sydney, Australia, and has four published novels, ‘Heléna’, ‘All the Days of My Life’, ‘Laura’ and ‘Jenna’. For more information, please visit her website, www.jo-anneberthelsen.com.

Greetings from Australia

Hi, I’m Narelle Atkins and I’m delighted to be a part of this blog promoting International Christian Fiction. I live in Canberra, the national capital of Australia. Population of around 340,000, Canberra is a three hour drive south-west of Sydney, and only a few hours away from the NSW South Coast and the Snowy Mountains. Here is a photo of Parliament House, one of Canberra’s more prominent landmarks.

Today I’m giving away an Australian calendar. For a closer look at the View Australia 2010 Calendar, please go to http://www.aussiecalendars.com/calendars/view-australia.htm

I thought I’d talk about Australia by referring to a few of the stunning photos in the calendar. The January calendar photo is from Palm Beach, on the northern beaches in Sydney. A beautiful part of the world, I grew up on the northern beaches and I couldn’t resist using Manly and Sydney Harbour as the setting for two of my manuscripts. Here is a photo of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, with Sydney ferries heading into Circular Quay and the North Sydney business district in the distance.


The July calendar photo is from Tulip Top Gardens near Canberra, ACT. Last month my children had a fabulous time attending a birthday party held at Tulip Top Gardens. The lovely people at Tulip Top Gardens very kindly allowed me to include a photo of their gardens in my post. Please visit their website http://www.tuliptopgardens.com.au/ and check out the gorgeous photos in their online photo gallery. Canberra is known for its Spring flower displays and Floriade is held every year in Commonwealth Park on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.


The November calendar photo includes The Three Sisters, Katoomba, NSW. Katoomba is located in the scenic Blue Mountains, a short drive west of Sydney, and is another setting I’ve used in my stories.

Australia is a country of diverse landscapes and has many amazing places from which to draw upon for story settings. Do you have a favorite Australian novel? Is there a particular part of Australia you’d like to read about as the setting for a story?

I love outback settings and thoroughly enjoyed reading Mary Hawkins’ recent release, Outback from Baragula (Ark House Press). I’m looking forward to reading Outback Hero (Avalon Books), a sweet romance by Canberra author and friend Elisabeth Rose.

To enter the drawing for the View Australia 2010 Calendar, please leave a comment on today's post. I'll draw the winner from the comments on this post on Sunday, November 29. Please leave an email address [ ] at [ ] dot [ ] where you can be reached.

"Void where prohibited; the odds of winning depend on the number of entrants. Entering the giveaway is considered a confirmation of eligibility on behalf of the enterer in accord with these rules and any pertaining local/federal/international laws."


Narelle Atkins writes contemporary inspirational romance. She resides in Canberra, Australia with her husband and children. To learn more about Narelle, please visit her website.