... to my blog today. Hello Megan, thanks for being here and I believe you have something very interesting to tell us...
In my latest book, Tangled Vines – a contemporary romance
novel, one of my main characters, Frederick Doyle owns a winery in the
Heathcote area in Victoria, Australia – an area renowned for excellent wine,
especially shiraz.
Frederick’s interest in wine-making is discussed within
the novel. We learn that courtesy of
his mother, Odette, he has extensive French family history. Her grandfather was a wine maker in France
before emigrating to Australia, and following in his footsteps, Frederick
travelled to France in his early twenties to work in wineries to learn his
craft before returning to Australia and establishing Fox & Grey, his own
winery – a little ode to France and his family history in regional Australia.
Like Frederick, around 100,000 Australians (at the 2006
Australian Census) claim French ancestry, either alone or with another
ancestry.
According to the Immigration Museum in Victoria, French
influence in Australia dates back to the 18th Century when French
explorers begun arriving on Australian shores, followed by officers, then by
free settlers and merchants – many of whom became land owners, establishing
businesses, farms and wineries.
The Gold Rush of the 1850s saw further French migration
(in fact, largely to areas where my book is set in regional Victoria) and 1892
saw the establishment of the first foreign language newspaper in Australia, Le
Courier Australien, according to the Immigration Museum. Post World War II also saw further migration
from France, and from all over Europe, as many people made Australia their
home.
With ancestry from Ireland on his father’s side and from
France on his mother’s, Frederick is interested in both and there is little
doubt how the differences between the cultures have formed his own personal
interests and character.
 |
| Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne |
He is acutely aware of his family history and in one
scene, he visits the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne with his love
interest, Amelia.
Like Frederick, this building is one of my favourites in
Melbourne. It was constructed for the 1880 International Exhibition, which saw
merchants and delegates from countries around the world attend to further trade
and investment opportunities, including those from France.
The building still stands in Melbourne’s Carlton Gardens,
which was constructed to host the 1880 International Exhibition, which saw
merchants from a number of countries visit to further trade and investment
opportunities. According to The Argus
Newspaper, which reported the event in considerable detail, the French ‘court’
at the exhibition displayed products for trade including toys, clocks,
artificial flowers, pottery, fabrics, glassware, silk and tapestries.
And Frederick’s ancestor, well, according to Frederick,
his ancestor was a French naval officer who may have gone ‘AWOL’ and decided to
stay in Australia after the exhibition ended!
The Royal Exhibition Building later hosted the first
sitting of the Australian Parliament and continues to host large events today
such as the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. It’s surrounded by the Carlton Gardens as
part of the museum precinct, and in fact, is the largest ‘item’ in the museum’s
collection.
Family and ancestry is a big part of Tangled Vines and it was such a
pleasure to write some of Frederick’s family tree into the book and understand
a little of the French influence in trade, culture, food and art that has
helped shaped Australia today.
...about the book Amelia O'Sullivan is a photographer who has
always viewed herself through the wrong lens. When her marriage publicly
crashes around her, she flees to the safety of her aunt's country property to
pick up the pieces. Can she adjust her focus to what she really wants from her
life?
Born into a wealthy and powerful family, Frederick Doyle may seem like a man
who has it all, but behind the scenes, a bitter business feud threatens an
irrevocable family split. As he fights for control of the winery he'd built
from the ground up, he finds a supportive ally in Amelia and becomes
increasingly beguiled by her creative spirit.
Jill McMahon is a successful novelist suffering from writer's block over her
latest manuscript. Finding her niece, Amelia, at her door, reminds her of the
bonds of family, but in seeing Amelia and Frederick's relationship grow, a
long-forgotten and painful secret threatens to re-surface.
Can Amelia, Frederick and Jill untangle themselves from their pasts or will
history simply repeat itself?
...about the author Megan Mayfair writes about families, intrigue and love. Every book contains a bit of humour and a lot of heart. She lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband and
three young children, and has a background in public relations and higher
education.
Megan drinks far too much coffee and has an addiction to
buying scarves. She interviews other authors for her blog series, Espresso Tales,
and loves a bit of #bookstagram.
Her debut novel, The Things We Leave Unsaid, and second novel, Tangled
Vines, were both published by Crooked Cat Books in 2018. Her
third book, The Problem with Perfect, will be published in 2019 by Crooked Cat
Books.
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