The Artisan Heart Official Spotify Soundtrack Playlist

To help establish the mood of my upcoming novel "The Artisan Heart", I'm pleased to share the official Spotify soundtrack playlist for the novel with you. 

Over the past little while, I have been curating a selection of music that inspired me while I was writing the novel and I've put together a soundtrack. Featuring the music of Swear and Shake, Josh Pyke, Paul Kelly, Greta Bradman, Stereophonics, Cold Chisel and many more, this soundtrack playlist will take you on a musical journey through the story and give you an aural experience that I hope you'll enjoy. 

Just click on the image below to open the playlist in your Spotify app.

The Artisan Heart by Dean Mayes, in-stores everywhere from September 1st, 2018.

Hayden Luschcombe is a brilliant paediatrician living in Adelaide with his wife, Bernadette, an ambitious event planner. His life consists of soul-wrenching days at the hospital and tedious evenings attending the lavish parties organized by Bernadette.

When an act of betrayal coincides with a traumatic confrontation, Hayden flees Adelaide, his life in ruins. His destination is Walhalla, nestled in Australia’s southern mountains, where he finds his childhood home falling apart. With nothing to return to, he stays, and begins to pick up the pieces of his life by fixing up the house his parents left behind.

Isabelle Sampi is a struggling artisan baker raising her hearing-impaired daughter, and has no time for matters of the heart. Yet the presence of the handsome doctor challenges her resolve. Likewise, Hayden, protective of his fractured heart, finds something in Isabelle that awakens dormant feelings of his own.

As their attraction grows, and the past threatens their chance at happiness, both Hayden and Isabelle will have to confront long-buried truths if they are ever to embrace a future.

THE ARTISAN HEART IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

                 

     

DFA.

I Have Some Exciting News - Meet "The Artisan Heart"

So I've been sitting on some news for quite a while now. I've been steadily working away for the past year or so on a brand new novel. Now, thanks to the amazing team at Central Avenue Publishing in Vancouver, Canada, I'm able to share the news that later this year, that new novel will be released to the world. 

Rather than recount the news in full here, I'd like to invite you to click through to Central Avenue Publishing's official blog and read the sneak peek Michelle Halket and the team have shared there.

Of course, I can't help but share the amazing cover art that has been put together by Michelle. We nutted this design out over a few email back and forths and we had some late, breaking inspiration from my 8 year old daughter who, in her enthusiasm for Daddy's new project, was inspired to try her hand at some artwork of her own. Her inclusion of the railway tracks in her design ended up transitioning across to the final design. I think you'll agree it's a beautiful addition.

The Artisan Heart - final.

Concept Art by Lucy Mayes - aged 8.

I'm excited to tell you so much more about this novel but I'll hold off for now and share some more insights with you as the clock ticks down to September this year. For now though, let me know what you think in the comments and, if you're keen, sign up for my exclusive newsletter updates as we roll forward towards the Southern Spring/Northern Fall. 

DFA. 

A Lily Among The Vines - A Look At The Vineyard In The Hills by Lily Malone

The Vineyard In The Hills by Lily Malone

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An Australian rural romance about a millionaire wine tycoon, the woman he betrayed and the second chance neither was looking for…

When she cut her viticulture degree short and moved home, Remy Hanley wasn’t thinking about anything more than making the next dollar for her pocket. Working two jobs to keep food on the table and a loan shark from the door, Remy and her mother slowly build a new life together. Then a freak storm tears through the Margaret River Wine Festival — and Seth Lasrey tears through Remy’s life.

Seth is old money. She is no money. He’s the boss. She’s his employee. He is society connections and expectations. She is threats and bad decisions and lost dreams. They seem to be so wrong they can only be right — until a costly mistake and a timely deception drives them apart. Remy picks up the pieces of her life and begins anew. The last thing she expects is Seth to show up in her small town in South Australia, bringing with him memories that she can’t escape and a damaged heart that she’s not sure she can resist.

Having entered into the world of West Australian author Lily Malone, I have come away from my first visit there with a huge, dopey smile on my face - courtesy of this delightful romance. Malone's easily accessible and often lyrical style brings her characters to life, from protagonists Seth and Remy to the supporting players in their respective spheres and she imbues them with just the right amount of complexity to make them thoroughly engaging. Themes of difficult family relationships, love, jealousy, loss, regret and ambition are artfully interwoven throughout the story and they keep you guessing as you delve deeper into the narrative.

Having lived in the Adelaide Hills myself, I was instantly familiar with the settings Malone explored in the central portion of the novel and the warmth of her descriptions with all their attendant textures and colours and scents were just lovely. Equally, Malone's ability to illustrate the less familiar (for me, at least) environs of the Margaret River region is skilfully done and I felt connected to place from the get go.

Of course, the romance factor is where it's at in this novel and Malone shines here, evoking all the senses and responses to good, old fashioned falling in love. The steam factor is certainly welcome also.

I'm so pleased I read The Vineyard In The Hills. Lily Malone is a delightful author, whose command of the genre is as solid as a rock.

Lily Malone (image credit: Lily Malone).

Lily Malone is a journalist and freelance writer who discovered after years of writing facts for a living, writing romance was much more fun.

Lily juggles writing with the needs of a young family, and when she isn’t writing, she likes gardening, walking, wine, and walking in gardens (sometimes with wine).

Buy The Vineyard In The Hills from Amazon here.

Visit Lily Malone here.

DFA.

View all my Goodreads reviews

Upcoming Event - Dean Mayes Author to Visit Adelaide Library.

Breaking Bread.

Recently, I have come to the realization that I have an obsession with bread making. I pour over the mixture of a dough in the same way Walter White pours over an ice recipe in his meth lab. It's all-consuming. 

In many ways, bread making as akin to the writing process. It requires planning - sometimes detailed, other times not so much, the introduction of elements/ingredients and a balancing of those to achieve a workable structure and it requires refinement, editing and checking.

And of course, like writing, bread making conjures a whole gamut of emotions. From the exhilarating highs when I open the lid of my Panasonic SD-250 bread maker at the end of a 4 hour cycle and find the most perfectly formed dome of my lovingly concocted loaf. To the utter despair of finding a catastrophically collapsed, genetic aberration that has suffered from bad yeast or too much water.

Panasonic SD-250 Bread maker. 

Home bread making is a fraught passion - and I am hopelessly addicted to it. 

I have refined the genr... I mean a particular recipe - a german grain/white hybrid to the point now where I can put together the ingredients with my eyes shut. 1.25 table spoons yeast, 2.5 cups Laucke brand german grain flour, 1 cup Laucke plain bread flour, 390mls of filtered water - (it must be filtered water because, hey - I live in Adelaide after all). Set the machine for a four hour cycle and let the magic happen. 

And after several months of following this idiot proof recipe, I'm ready to expand my repertoire and start tackling more ambitious concoctions. Being the shameless self promoter that I am, I would like to receive praise in another endeavor and my family can only stroke my ego so much. 

The Laucke Flour Mill Company is a South Australian company - nay, an institution in this state and they are my go-to for quality flour. Their bread flours are highly regarded and used by both professional bakers and home enthusiasts. They also have a great website that has a growing repository of recipes from the company itself as well as contributors. I'm keen to try them all of course but, for the moment, one in particular, has caught my notice  - an almond and dried fig loaf. It looks divine and I think I have the confidence now to try it. 

Image Copyright © Laucke Flour Mills. Laucke's wholemeal almond and fig loaf. 

One of the issues I have encountered in my bread making journey is that of storage. Up until recently, I was storing my loaves either in a plastic shopping bag or a freezer bag on the kitchen bench so that it is always in easy reach. This however, is not the ideal storage medium for a loaf. Laucke bread flour contains no preservative agents therefore they recommend consuming baked loaves within 24 hours. My aim is to keep my loaves fresh for as much as several days - so they can be used for school lunches, breakfasts and meal accompaniments. Also, home bread making can be a costly exercise if one is constantly churning out loaves. 

What I have found though, is that after the first 24 hours, there's a significant degradation in the freshness of a loaf - even stored as air tightly as possible. As the days pass, this degradation accelerates and I have even noticed the beginnings of mold after day five or six. Laucke recommends storage in calico bag or a bread box. 

Where longer storage is required, Laucke recommends cutting the bread into slices and storing in the freezer. I've never been a fan of freezer storage for bread, even for short periods. There's just something about the artificial environment of a freezer that I can't quite accept. We're dealing with a delicate food item here. I've gotten a hold of a calico bag and I'm going to try that this week. I'm hoping that will enhance the preservation of my loaf but I'm open to suggestions if you have them.

What have your storage experiences been with home cooked bread? What kind of flour do you prefer? Have you found a fail safe method of storage and how long have you been able to maintain the freshness of your loaves? I'd love to read your comments and experiences.

I am a hopeless devotee of bread making. Like writing, bread making requires a skillful hand, some imagination, a constant tweaking of ingredients in order to achieve a cohesive structure and a little faith in yourself. 

The ultimate story is yet to be told...

DFA. 

Bringing Chaos To Order - Conversations with Meg Eichmann

This past Saturday, I attended the South Australian Writers Centre Summer Book Fair at the Atrium in Rundle Street, Adelaide. It was a great event and a great opportunity to showcase "Gifts of the Peramangk" as well as meet some wonderful people. And one person in particular who kinda blew me away was up and coming South Australian author Meg Eichmann.

At just 16, Meg has already packed a considerable amount into her young life that has included overseas travel, schooling in some diverse and varied places and of course writing, which she has an untold passion for. Like me, Meg was present at the Summer Book Fair to promote her debut novel "The Order's Experiments" which caught my eye right away and made an impression - not only for what it promises as a story - but for the story behind the story. This writer's journey towards publication is worthy of telling in and of itself.

But let's start with the guff on "The Order's Experiments" which is a fascinating blend of sci-fi, urban dystopia and chase thriller. 

Kyra and Fallen have strange pasts. At six years old Fallen fled from his unconventional home to the streets. Kyra, born to an underworld movement known as the Order, ran away when she was eight to be free of it. Both live in the city as street kids, living as strays for years, repressing their pasts as they try to survive, but no one can run forever. When the Order persuades Fallen to join them Kyra, in debt to Fallen feels compelled to return as well and both of them start the long journey back into their memories.

Together they are made to delve into what was their past; face the harsh realities of the underground and find a way to help each other face their childhood demons. While training themselves into heartless killers their only hope is to reconcile their lives in time to save their future.

The Order's Experiments is written in a voice that is at once contemporary but it possesses a tension and a maturity that is testament to Meg's skill as a story teller. The dual protagonists in Kyra and Fallen engage the reader and invite you to accompany them on what is at times a harrowing psychological journey. Their journey is visceral and you feel it acutely. 

As mentioned earlier, Meg sat down to write the novel back in 2009 as a 13 year old. Juggling the demands of school and a young life in general is considerable enough but in talking with Meg she recalled to me that the initial draft took her about a year to write. Once it was completed however, she didn't know what to do with it, how to find a publisher or an editor for that matter. 

I then signed up with Xlibris in 2011, a self-publishing agency where you pay them to print and make the book available, however I still had to edit it myself. So I spent around six months editing and cleaning up the book with the help of friends and family until it was finished and I published halfway through this year. It was such a slow process and I was never sure what moment were the ones to celebrate. Certainly, the moment I finished the book, unedited but finished, years before was a good one. Finishing the editing too was fantastic and a huge relief. Now, all that remains is to see how the book fairs in the market place.

The Order's Experiments greatest strengths are its characters. They are vividly drawn and their motivations are real and compelling. I asked Meg how much of herself is invested in these remarkable characters.

In Kyra, I tried to avoid making her too much like myself, but I very much wanted to use aspects of myself that I hadn't explored much to build her, and through that she evolved into a person of her own. She takes up aspects of humanity that can be seen as bad, like a great need and love of power and strength, but crafts them into tools for her own usage. Through her and Fallen, I've taken traits that might often be associated with villains, because of our own perceptions of the wrong in these traits, and explored them as survival tools, kept in check by the characters. 

My main male character for instance, Sorric Fallen, has an extremely cold and unsympathetic temperament, which he uses to survive but still has a moral code to keep himself in check. He is attracted to the humanity in Kyra, and recognizes that they have a similar understanding about these negative aspects of themselves, that they were all they had to keep themselves alive. 

Through the book, I wanted to use it as a tool to question our common day moral beliefs and explore the changing meanings of right and wrong.  

Meg Eichmann was born in Elizabeth, South Australia in May 1995. After moving to New South Wales, where she spent seven of her schooling years, her passion for writing was first sparked. She moved back to South Australia with her family in 2010 where she currently resides and attends high school in the city. Aside from writing, Meg enjoys archery and bush walking. 

Meg has also travelled extensively, spending time in Eastern Europe where she volunteered at an orphanage in Romania. This experience in particular had a profound effect and has shaped her conscience.

My Romanian experience was very much a journey of self discovery. I wanted to see what I was capable of in travelling and volunteering and working with children, because it really is very hard work. 

Romania itself was wonderful, the culture and the landscape, and the way the orphanage was run I thought was fantastic and I learned a lot from them. They had a very open, community setting and it seemed to work well for the children. I with my elder sister worked with the younger children and in particular two toddlers for twelve hours a day. We stayed inside and tried to keep them entertained and after midday the rest of the kids would come home and were wanting attention too. 

I am really glad I did it. The two toddlers, Alex and Maria I will remember for the rest of my life, Alex in particular I looked after. We think he might have been autistic, as he seemed really intelligent but didn't like being touched, but I found that if I held him as though my arms were a swing - that cheered him up no end, and I grew really fond of him. 

But I have to add, other parts of that trip included the freezing cold, sorting through donations with numb fingers and colds, and a lot of stress. However we also had a fantastic time in Romanian Castles, and trips out to the forest with some kids. I'm really glad I did it.

Meg's priority going forward is to complete her secondary education in 2013 after which she'll explore university - but it is writing and travel, with volunteering included that Meg sees as her priority.

The Order's Experiments is available now.

Purchase The Order's Experiments from Xlibris Publishing

Purchase The Order's Experiments from Amazon

Purchase The Order's Experiments from Bookworld Australia 

Purchase The Order's Experiments from Barnes and Noble 

Connect with Meg at her Official Site here

Facebook Meg here

Meg Eichmann at the SA Writers Centre here

DFA.

Sketching "The Gift" - Part Two.

It's often the case that inspiration will come at you from out of no where.


As I continue to work on my latest writing project, I remain a "bower bird" - a collector of minutiae. It may be the most esoteric 'thing' - like a lollie wrapper or a flower from a particular place, a shard of an old house brick that has a certain smell. I collect these things because they fire off something in my imagination. Sometimes that "something" is completely unknown to me but I take and I add to my collection basket because I know that it will come in handy at some point. Sometimes, the 'thing' that I am looking for is a lot more obvious to me and it carries much more significance. When I do happen upon it, it opens the flood gates.


A couple of weekends ago, I helped my brother in law move some furniture to his new home just outside of a little town in South Australia's mid north called Orooroo. He's just been employed by a resources board up there working with water management and the environment and was able to rent a farm house on a sprawling thousand acres of grazing country - not quite the true outback of Australia, but pretty damned close to it. 


Anyway, he and I and my other brother in law convoyed it up there, with three cars and two trailers on a fairly balmy Saturday afternoon. The journey took around three and a half hours. Now, once you hit the outskirts of Adelaide's north, you pretty quickly enter into a rural heartland that is as far removed from the city as you can get. The architecture changes too, and at various points along the way, you pass farming country that is dotted with examples of stone construction from a seriously bygone era. Home steads, cottages, stables, sheds - all in various states of disrepair. Some of them are crumbling to the earth, while others standing silent in remarkably good condition. 


As I'm driving along, I'm thinking about the novel that I am writing and in particular, I'm thinking about the portion of the novel that takes place in the rural Australia of the 1950's. This is the farm where my young protagonist, Virginia Crammond is taken after having been forcibly removed from her mother by the Aborigines Protectorate Officers. I'm starting to see comparisons to the image I've built up in my head of the farm that features in the story but as I pass by these random places, nothing is jumping out at me that is particularly inspiring.


Then, after several hours, we arrive at the farm where my brother in law will be living and I am quite literally floored. There is a farm house there that stands derelict but still intact, old stone buildings and sheds that are in various states of disrepair. The surrounding country side is vast, barren and totally isolating but beautiful at the same time. 


This isn't just a farm. It is the farm. It is My farm. 


This is the place I have pictured in my mind's eye for so long and I could not believe that I was actually in this place, a place I have written so vividly about for so many months now. 


Suffice to say, I got my cell phone camera out and began snapping in earnest. 


Now, I know that these images will be a little difficult for you to get your mind around in terms of how they fit into the story. But they speak to a place that - in my story at least - is harsh, unforgiving and, for an 8 year old Aboriginal girl who has been removed from everything she knows and placed here, crushingly isolating. I should add a disclaimer here too and say that the setting for the farm as depicted in the novel is not actually specific to a particular place. The farm's location will remain ambiguous in the novel and be described only as being somewhere in the rural regions of South Australia. 


To give you an idea of the tone and the story of my new work, do check out my work in progress preview pieces here at my site.


It's a visual epiphany that has totally fired my imagination.


DFA.

It is at once a harsh and unforgiving landscape and yet incredibly beautiful.

The summer storm hung around for several hours and put on a magnificent show. 

This farmhouse, long since deserted is in surprisingly good shape and is now the focal point for many of the critical scenes in my new work "Gifts Of The Peramangk"

Close up of the stone construction employed in these beautiful buildings.

The old homestead that has now become "The Penschey Homestead" (Note - there is a beautiful old cast iron wood burning stove in the kitchen that I would give my left kidney for).

An old Bedford truck that I'd like to use in the novel - if I can confirm it's circa 1950's. (My brother in law is seeing if he can pop the hood).

Movement from the past.

A stone building that I have claimed as "Virginia's Outhouse". It's a rather cosy little dwelling inside, which at one time had power to it. (My brother in law Dan stands in the foreground).

"Gifts of the Peramangk" is Copyright © 2011 Dean Mayes & Hambledown Road Imprints.