Spotlight is on Jenn J McLeod this week
and we’re showcasing
House for All Seasons

 

No stranger to embracing a second chance or trying something different, I took my first tentative steps towards a tree change in 2004, escaping Sydney’s corporate chaos to buy a small cafe in the seaside town of Sawtell.

Moving to the country was like coming home.

After ten years running a B&B on my NSW property, I now get to write my contemporary Australian fiction (life-affirming novels of small town life and the country roots that run deep) grey nomad style – a wandering writer of no fixed address. Yep! I’ve hit the road in a Ford and a fifth wheeler – writing in and under the Southern Cross.

 

 

 

Jenn J McLeod. Australian fiction. Come home to the country.

Jenn’s COMING SOON next release

Everything has a reflection . . .
And there’s another side to every story.

When offering to drive her brother to Byron Bay to escape the bitter Blue Mountain’s winter, Sidney neglects to mention her planned detour to the small seaside town of Watercolour Cove.

Thirty-five years earlier, Watercolour Cove is a very different place. Two brothers are working the steep, snake-infested slopes of a Coffs Coast banana plantation. Seventeen-year-old David does his share, but the budding artist spends too much time daydreaming about becoming the next Pro Hart and skiving off with the teasing and tantalisingly pretty Tilly from the neighbouring property. His older brother, Matthew, has no time for such infatuations. His future is on the land and he plans to take over the Greenhill plantation from his father.

Life is simple on top of the mountain for David, Matthew and Tilly until the winter of 1979 when tragedy strikes, starting a chain reaction that will ruin lives for years to come. Those who can, escape the Greenhill plantation. One stays—trapped on the mountain and haunted by memories and lost dreams. That is until the arrival of a curious young woman, named Sidney, whose love of family shows everyone the truth can heal, what’s wrong can be righted, the lost can be found, and . . .
. . . there’s another side to every story.

The Other Side of the Season is releasing 1 May 2016 in eBook and paperback and is available for pre-order now.
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House for all Seasons is having its 3rd birthday - and on its release in 2013 it hit #5 top selling debut novel.
Read an extract from Chapter One of House for all Seasons below.

Four women.
Four lives unravelled.
The truth will bind them forever.

Bequeathed a century-old house, four estranged friends return to their hometown, Calingarry Crossing, where each must stay for a season at the Dandelion House to fulfil the wishes of their benefactor, Gypsy.

But coming home to the country stirs shameful memories of the past, including the tragic end-of-school muck up day accident twenty years earlier.

Sara, a breast cancer survivor afraid to fall in love;
Poppy, a tough, ambitions journo still craving her father’s approval;
Amber, a spoilt socialite addicted to painkillers and cosmetic procedures;
Caitlin, a doctor frustrated by a controlling family and her flat-lining life.

At the Dandelion House, the women will discover something about themselves and a secret that ties all four to each other and to the house – forever.
Small towns can keep big secrets…

Extract from House for all Seasons by Jenn J McLeod

Chapter 1

‘I’m not going back there. Not for three months, three weeks, not even three days.’

Two decades on and Poppy, once powerful playground prima donna, could still command a crowd. ‘As lovely as it is to catch up with you ladies after all this time, I can’t do this. I won’t. Sorry. Besides, it makes no sense.’

Time pressured—as usual—Poppy stood apart from her three companions, alone and restless on the window side of the conference room. She eyed the wall clock hanging at one end of it, then her friends.

Former friends.

Strangers.

‘Didn’t you understand the conditions when you read them?’ Sara said, struggling to project her voice. She was propped on the edge of the Chesterfield sofa in a very girly skirt and top—all pastel and flowing—fidgety fingers pressed into her lap, twisting themselves in knots. ‘The will states we’re all supposed to go back.’

‘Yes, but it’s madness.’ Poppy didn’t bother hiding the exasperation in her voice. ‘Even if I wanted to go back there, the Walkley Awards are on earlier than normal this year. I have to be here for that.’

Sara blinked big brown eyes. ‘Wow, a Walkley! Do you think you have a shot?’

Poppy shrugged. ‘As much as anyone else. Whatever happens though, I can’t up and walk away from my life like the rest of you seem to have no problem doing.’

Who was she kidding? She had no life. Living and breathing her job was all Poppy did, twenty-four seven.

‘You know the news business. No predicting when a story will break. And if I do win, well, who knows. I’ll definitely need to be on the spot ready to do what I do.’

‘And we all know what it is you do, don’t we, girls?’ Amber piped up from her pretentious pose at the opposite end of the Chesterfield, her body draped in such a way that it took up two-thirds of the magnificent old sofa. ‘Making up the news rather than reporting it.’

Poppy ignored the stab. She’d learned to disregard Amber Bailey’s caustic remarks at school. She knew all too well the cattiness was a result of growing up amid the bitter feuding of an alcoholic mother and a pushy father.

A tinge of regret niggled Poppy. At least pushy meant Amber’s father had cared enough to want the best for his child. Poppy’s father, Johnno Hamilton, was too damaged to care about anyone, especially his daughter.

Poppy made a point of addressing Sara. ‘All I’m saying is, win or lose, I’m bound to be busy around that time.’

Amber ran a manicured hand over slender, solarium-enhanced legs and in a tone as high and mighty as the heels on her designer shoes said, ‘What our roving reporter means, ladies, is she’ll be busy recovering from wearing stilettos and a dress. Or perhaps, Poppy darling, walking into the Walkley Awards in those very stylish Blundstone boots and combat pants is your preferred style. You always loved making statements at school.’

‘And you, Amber, always wanted to be the centre of attention. I see that hasn’t changed either.’ Poppy sneezed, three restrained achoos, either an allergic reaction to the miasma of perfumes and potions floating over Amber, or the artificial ficus plants plonked in each corner of the room.

One by one, Poppy searched the multiple pockets of her khaki cargo pants until she located a tissue to wipe her nose. ‘Besides, Johnno’s actually coming out of that jungle home of his in Nimbin to attend the function. I suggested he stay with me a few days. He didn’t say no.’

‘Your father is coming to Sydney to watch you win an award for a report you did on the war? Now that’s madness.’ Amber flicked a small makeup mirror open and bared bleached-white teeth in a kind of snarl, vanishing a red lipstick smear with the tip of a bejewelled finger before closing the compact with a snap. ‘Your dad hated war stories. He hated war. As I remember it, he hated people too, didn’t he?’

Poppy stared at the sharpness of the cold, overcrowded Sydney city skyline, her thoughts waging their own war.

Attack or retreat?

She decided to ignore Amber’s sneer. Ordinarily, mostly where people were concerned, retreating came naturally to Poppy. Only for some reason she had the sudden need to defend her father. But how could she explain Johnno to anyone when she didn’t understand him herself?

Wedging her fists into her trouser pockets, as if digging deep for the right words, Poppy decided to try. ‘Johnno doesn’t hate people, Amber,’ she said in a voice as cold and flat as the pane of glass between her and the view outside the thirteenth-floor office window. ‘He hates the world. Besides, he was fine with my job when he thought I was protesting against the war. Not so pleased when he realised I was reporting on it—or as he would say, “glorifying” it. When he bothers to acknowledge one of my letters to let me know he’s still alive, they always start the same way: Dear Poppy-ganda.’

‘Well,’ Amber huffed, ‘I say let’s get this come-back-to-the-country pilgrimage over and done with sooner rather than later, so we can get the place on the market. Spring or summer is the best selling time, although forget December and January. Real estate dies. We certainly don’t want to be trying to sell a cold old house surrounded by water in the middle of winter.’

Amber still sounded like she was trying to control the four of them. Little had changed since school, when she’d acted as if everything and everyone revolved around her, the brightest star in her own universe, her fiery-red curls symbolic—everyone else mere moons to her bright sun. No curls anymore, though. Her slick, salon-straightened coiffure looked every bit as stiff and unnatural as the rest of her.

‘In his letter,’ Amber continued, ‘Mr Madgick suggests we pick a season each to spread out our stays. I think that’s a perfect idea.’

‘Are you seriously considering this, Amber? And enough with the bloody Mr Madgick thing. You make him sound all spoooo-keeee!’ Poppy waved her fingers and gave a little wolf howl, the moment of melancholy about Johnno pushed to the back of her mind. ‘Ah-woooo!’

‘I’m not considering it. I’m doing it. I suppose you think I can’t.’

‘Leave that perfect Potts Point palace of yours and get your hands dirty in the oldest tumble-down house in Calingarry Crossing? Frankly? No. And I figured you’d be the last one wanting to show your face back there, considering the mess you and your father left behind.’

‘I’m definitely going back,’ Sara chipped in, distracting the pair as though she knew from experience the situation between Poppy and Amber needed defusing quickly. ‘I can go first if you like.’

‘Oh, we know why you’re so peachy keen to go back to the old stamping ground, don’t we, Poppy?’ Amber’s face barely registered the little society snigger she let out. Botoxed to the max, her sole expression now seemed stuck somewhere between a scowl and a smile.

The way she preened her hair, and with her big, almond-shaped eyes, Amber Bailey-Blair not only looked like a cat, she was a cat, purring one minute, the next sharpening her claws, and always landing on her feet. From the look of her—that hair, her flawless skin, designer wardrobe and jewellery aplenty—she’d done more than land on her feet. She’d landed in the lap of luxury.

‘So, Sara, we are right—aren’t we?’ Amber challenged. A cat taunting a mouse, although Sara seemed far from mousey these days with the defiant lift of her chin and a look that said that sticks and stones would no longer break her bones.

‘I’m sure you both think you know why I’m so keen, but I can assure you, you don’t.’

At thirty-six, Sara Fraser’s voice did still have that thin don’t-make-me-cry whine, but if anyone was allowed that Sara was, simply for surviving every challenge life had thrown her way before her sixteenth birthday.

‘It’s not a case of seeing how a certain person’s getting on, is it, Sara?’ Poppy stifled a grin, sharing a rare camaraderie with Amber.

‘Okay, okay, enough!’ Caitlin Wynter—dux, school prefect and perennial peacemaker—propelled her office chair closer to the Waterford jug on the corner of the conference table, filling her glass. ‘I can’t believe you three are bickering like teenagers again. We’re supposed to be twenty years older and wiser. Just as well we’re keeping to separate seasons in the old place, if you ask me. I doubt we’d make it out alive if we all stayed together.’

Poppy turned towards the woman who’d been her best friend and ally throughout high school. ‘So the good doctor is going to up and leave her life to do this crazy thing too?’

Researching the trio of old friends Poppy had learned Caitlin’s father was behind the successful Dr Wynter Wellness Centre franchise, and with the old doc’s passing a few years ago, Cait and her brother now presided over the business as company directors.

‘You lot couldn’t shake me off at school. What makes you think you can shake me off now?’ Caitlin settled back with a grin, looking at ease in the executive leather armchair, tucking one toned but lily-white leg under her curvaceous bottom. Her eyes, the colour of burnt toffee, peeked out from beneath her heavy brown fringe. ‘Anyway, a little injection of something different never hurts.’

‘Trust a doctor to say that.’ Poppy relaxed into a smile as she remembered the studious young girl. Only one thing could ever peel Cait Wynter away from her schoolbooks. ‘I wonder how big Gypsy’s menagerie is these days.’

How Cait had loved helping Gypsy with her rescued animals— the lost, the hurt, the hungry—an analogy not lost on Poppy, seeing all four girls together again.

‘And Amber, I’m sorry to disagree,’ Caitlin continued. ‘But I happen to think the property is at its best in winter, especially early mornings when that layer of mist settles over the river and makes the house look like it floats on a cloud. To think old Gypsy left such a treasure to the four of us.’

‘But why us? Especially me. There must be someone else who . . . ’ Amber’s voice trailed away.

Of course, there had been someone else, and it seemed now that all four women were remembering the same moment twenty years ago.

House for all Seasons is available in eBook and paperback from all good retailers.
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