What’s so special about a table? (aka Quinn, by design)

Absolutely everything.

In Quinn, by design—Choosing Family Book 2, one of Niall Quinn’s major creations is a table made from a single bark to bark piece of Huon pine (pictured on my website jenniferrainesauthor.com).

The Huon pine or Macquarie pine, Lagarostrobos franklinii, is a species of conifer native to the wet southwestern corner of Tasmania, Australia. While known as a pine, it’s actually a podocarp (Podocarpaceae), not a true pine (Pinaceae). It’s the sole species in the genus Lagarostrobos. Huon pines are among the oldest living and rarest species of trees in the world and are now critically endangered. Individual trees have been identified as over 2,000 years old. The Huon pine has an incredibly slow growth rate of about 0.3 — 2mm per year, taking approximately 1,000 years to reach a height of 30m and a diameter of 1 metre.

Niall’s rich, creamy, yellow wood table has a width of approximately 72 cm, meaning you’re looking at a piece of wood hundreds of years old. I’ll add a caveat here: this piece of wood was harvested in the 19thcentury and held within the woodworker’s family for several generations until it was turned into a table.

Niall’s table is a simple design involving three pieces of Huon pine and an ironbark beam. It’s stunning because of the simplicity of the design and the quality of the timber, and is a privilege for anyone to own.

So, that’s what’s special about Niall’s table.

The table also revealed Niall’s passion to me, which is the crafting of beautiful, yet practical objects using old and recycled timber.

Niall Quinn—struggling woodworker, man of integrity, sexy beast seemed to invite the trope opposites attract. That’s how I met Liùsaidh (Lucy) McTavish, also interested in the arts, but in her case she values and preserves antiques. Lucy chooses the old vs the new. Niall’s creations force her to reassess her perception of timelessness.

Lucy took me in other directions as well. She’s able to tell the difference between Royal Doulton Art Deco and Minton Pink Cockatrice tableware. She recalls that in eighteenth-century France, frames for paintings stood as works of art in their own right, partly furniture and partly sculpture, and sometimes worth more than the painting. She has no trouble at all recognising a Maud Bowden art deco vase circa 1912 using brush lining rather than tube-lining and beadwork for decoration. Don’t you just love a woman who knows her subject!

Do you have a favourite object passed through generations in your family? A lot of people don’t. Treasures can be lost to poverty, war, theft, simply moving house or one generation deciding something is worthless. Value and sentiment are personal to each individual.

Ultimately, Quinn, by design is a romance, so the story focuses on the two main leads, Niall Quinn and Liùsaidh (Lucy) McTavish, who are attracted, but have so much happening right now, love might have to wait. The research for this book took me down fascinating rabbit holes. I hope you enjoy what I found.

June 2024 Giveaway: Masquerade—Choosing Family Book 1

And the winner is Kirsten H.

Kirsten already has a paperback copy of Masquerade—Choosing Family Book 1, so has chosen a paperback copy of Quinn, by design—Choosing Family Book 2. Congratulations, Kirsten.

Australian Romance Readers Association (ARR2025)

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be signing at A Romantic Rendezvous in Sydney in March 2025. I can’t wait to see you all again.

Tickets will go on sale in September. In the meantime you could win a Golden Ticket to the city of your choice. You can enter the giveaway here: https://bit.ly/ARR2025GT Then join us in the Attendees group  for all author announcements: https://www.facebook.com/groups/arr2025attendees

Find me on

You can also contact me directly via the contact page on my website if you have any other questions.

Familiar or unfamiliar settings?

Do you like to read novels set in a familiar or a foreign—by which I mean unfamiliar in time and space to you—location?

A long time ago, I overhead someone say they loved Peter Corris’s crime novels because they were set in the city where the reader lived. That reader knew the streets, the spaces and could imagine themselves in the action. It was another layer to their enjoyment of the book, but one that hadn’t registered with me at that time.

Oh no, said another reader, I love to be an armchair traveller when I’m reading, to find new places that I can dream of visiting or to revisit places I’ve been and remember the excitement, the awe, the sparkle of discovery.

Then we hit historical fiction—the quote that pops into my head is from L. P. Hartley’s 1953 novel, The Go Between “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” That sentence resonates on multiple levels. Yet 1953, and even the beginning of the 20th century where the story starts are at most 120 years ago, baby steps when you’re talking historical fiction.

In historical fiction, you may recognise places, the facades of buildings and streets might look unchanged, but just think of the plumbing and wiring! That’s before you consider furniture, clothes, design, music, art and attitudes. It’s why I’ve always thought writing historical fiction is challenging. You need extensive research and attention to detail for accuracy in setting the scene and understanding the cultural conventions.

A fan of J.D. Robb’s futuristic crime novels, when describing them to me a few years ago, told me J. D. had covered all bases, in the sense of making rules and building a world that can’t be challenged by the reader because the books are set in 2040. Well, look out, 2040 is getting increasingly close. AI tools are already stealing the settings, characters and words authors sweat to produce.

The world of video game design is a setting and world that is completely unfamiliar to me. But for Gabrielle Zevin, who wrote Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, it’s been part of her everyday all her life. I had to pay attention to this setting because it’s so integral to the story, but the characters are immensely powerful as well.

Take paranormal or fantasy novels where the world building and setting are the attraction for many readers.

Despite finding some settings fascinating, I’ve never chosen novels specifically for their setting. It’s always been the characters for me. The characters who capture my imagination and keep me up late at night to make sure they’re happy, or safe. Although happy and safe operate in so many dimensions in our current world. You can be physically safe, but emotionally or mentally at risk.

That’s not to say I don’t seriously consider where my books are set, and how the setting suits the characters. Lela’s Choice is set in Malta and I can’t imagine it would work anywhere else. Planting Hope is set in a large garden on the edge of a regional town. It may sound like a small setting, but it was right at that moment for those characters. I’ve set books in Sydney, my home town, and I’m currently contemplating one set in Finland, because why not?

For me, characters drive the story. I’d love to know what you think.

June 2024 Giveaway: Masquerade—Choosing Family Book 1

Quinn, by design—Choosing Family Book 2 releases on 18 June, so I’ve decided to do a giveaway of Masquerade—Choosing Family Book 1, just to give you a taste of Liam’s twin, Niall.

All subscribers to my blog on 10 June 2024 will automatically be entered in a draw to win a copy of Masquerade—Choosing Family Book 1.

International: e-book copy

Australia: e-book or paperback (winner’s choice)

Note: Getting my ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) together:

ARC readers get advance copies of new releases with the request to post an honest review on one of the major sites, for example, Goodreads, Bookbub, Apple, Amazon, Kobo or Barnes & Noble.

If you’d like to be an ARC reader for  my upcoming books you can sign up to Booksprout, where you’ll have a choice of my books or the books of other authors.

Alternatively, you can contact me directly via the contact link on my website. Let me know a little about yourself. I always post the blurb for my next book on the My Books page of my website, so have a read of that and see if Quinn, by design is a story you’ll enjoy.

By agreeing to be part of my ARC team, you are in no way obligated to leave a review on any site, although I’d appreciate it. I welcome all reviews, good or bad, as long as they are honest.

Find me on

You can also contact me directly via the contact page on my website if you have any other questions.

Writing the little black dress

Do a web search for “little black dress” and you’ll discover that fashion historians credit Coco Chanel for this 1920s design. It’s a clothing item that’s so well known it’s often referred to as “LBD”. The LBD is intended to be long-lasting, versatile, affordable, and widely accessible symbolising class, business, elegance, and sexiness. I’ll have what she’s wearing!

“The original LBD also became a blank slate for reinvention that evolved to accommodate the fashionable silhouettes of every decade, from Cristóbal Balenciaga’s abstract sculptural volumes and Christian Dior’s cinched waists and full A-line skirts to Rei Kawakubo’s body-engulfing Comme des Garçons designs and Vivienne Westwood’s draped corset dresses.”

Hollywood’s influence on fashion helped its popularity. Think Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Fast-forward to the Barbie world premiere in July 2023, when Margot Robbie posed for pictures on a pink carpet, in front of a pink Corvette convertible, wearing a black custom Schiaparelli Haute Couture bustier dress that was fully embroidered with sequins and finished with layers of tulle. Admittedly, she did carry a pink mousseline scarf. The modern Barbie wears black.

Trends in fashion come and go, but we’ve held on the LBD—in all its variations—for more than a century now.

Now think of the timelessness of the romance novel—it has multiple genres—historical, paranormal, speculative, romantic suspense, contemporary, romantic comedy, young adult, fantasy, science fiction, LGBTIQ—and the list continues to grow. Within these there are sub-genres and varying levels of heat or spiciness. Erotica is often described as standing to one side of romance because the intent is not to deliver a Happily-Ever-After (HEA) or Happy-For-Now (HFN) outcome.

Like every other area of human endeavour, there are trends and fads in romance fiction. Some authors choose to follow trends, sometimes to stretch their creative muscles, but if you love writing and want to make a living out of it, you have to be hard headed. For other authors, it’s a genre they love.

A current trend is dark romance—themes of love, passion and (often) obsession set against a backdrop of darkness, danger or taboo. The Fifty Shades of Grey series fits this category. Novels can explore BDSM (light or heavy), role playing, abduction, rape fantasies, and kidnapping and captivity. Mafia romance has a growing fan base. Dubious or no consent features, as well as dominant males. Arguably love still leads to redemption, although not all character behaviours change. Some dark romance is getting darker, and the term used in bully romance, which is a pretty descriptive statement. The stakes are higher in these romances, the tension greater and, so the argument goes, reader satisfaction is greater (potentially) when love triumphs.

Social media, including TikTok has popularised a lot of books, including dark romance, but social media has also helped promote terms like “golden retriever” or “cinnamon roll” hero as an antidote to toxic masculinity, although this sub-genre isn’t gaining the same traction.

A cinnamon roll hero is a sweet, supportive and kind hero—the anti Christian Grey. Golden retriever heroes are variously described as calm, easy-going, dependable, good listeners and observers. One source adds that Golden retrievers understand the true meaning of being a partner. Another suggests they’re naïve, which isn’t necessarily a good rep to have if you’re a hero! A good cinnamon roll hero is a multilayered, sexy character.

At their heart, romance novels are about fantasy and escapism. Not everyone shares the same fantasies, and a reader’s fantasies can change over time. At this point in history, between statistics about partner abuse, attacks on gender equality, assumptions that women in high places got there on quotas rather than merit, and even the clustering and muttering of groups on social media e.g.- involuntarily celibate (INCELs) men who blame women because they don’t have a partner, and pundits claiming women should behave like women, I’m beginning to wonder if cinnamon rolls, who value equality in their relationships with women, and who trumpet women’s success, are the real fantasy.

To fit modern parlance, you could say I write cinnamon rolls with backbones of steel. It may be fanciful to suggest it, but really, I write the “little black dress” of romance—contemporary romance with heat and heart, where the lovers are so well-matched you’re convinced the relationship will grow and last. Like the LBD, my heroes are keepers. I hope readers agree.

Note: Getting my ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) together:

ARC readers get advance copies of new releases with the request to post an honest review on one of the major sites, for example, Goodreads, Bookbub, Apple, Amazon, Kobo or Barnes & Noble.

If you’d like to be an ARC reader for my upcoming books—next in line, Quinn, by design—you can sign up to Booksprout, where you’ll have a choice of my book or the books of other authors.

Alternatively, you can contact me directly via the contact link on my website. Let me know a little about yourself. I always post the blurb for my next book on the My Books page of my website, so have a read of that and see if Quinn, by design is a story you’ll enjoy.

By agreeing to be part of my ARC team, you are in no way obligated to leave a review on any site, although I’d appreciate it. I welcome all reviews, good or bad, as long as they are honest.

Find me on

You can also contact me directly via the contact page on my website if you have any other questions.

Reflections on an author signing event

Let’s just put this out there—the weakest link in my writing journey is promotion and marketing.

But I’m learning.

And part of that learning was to join The Australian Romance Readers Association (ARRA)‘s A Romantic Rendezvous. This was a multi author event across Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth—a huge amount of work for a volunteer organisation that supports Australian romance authors. So, a big shout out to them for their ongoing support.

Author signing events are becoming increasing popular in Australia. Essentially, you get a bunch of authors in a room and then invite readers to come along and say hello. Usually, you’ll have one or two headline authors to attract visitors, but many readers come along to meet authors they’ve read and liked, to buy signed copies of their books, to discover new authors and, in the case of A Romantic Rendezvous, new genres.

As an author you sit at a table with your writing history spread before you hoping you’ll attract some interest. You can opt to share a table or have your own. I opted to share and found myself sitting beside the marvellous Maggie Kay, a successful dark romance author. Maggie’s sister, author Jasmine Stevens—contemporary and rural romance—had come along to support Maggie, so I was able to pick up tips from both of them.

Maggie’s book covers were a striking contrast to mine (see photo on webpage), and as some readers said—”it’s the cover that gets me every time”.

Most readers did a full circuit of the room, chatting to authors along the way, then a second circuit when they’d decided on their priorities. Not everyone was there to buy a print copy; some readers were happy to discover an author then add to their e-book collection, although some authors had special print editions purely for author signing events. Luscious versions with colour, beautiful paper and extra illustrations.

Something I should have known, but was struck by, is that as readers of English, we read from left to right. Readers approached the tables the same way, speaking first to the author on the left. Maggie was always first, and observing her style and professionalism saved me from making rookie blunders.

The authors in the room were upbeat and happy to share the ups and downs in their writing journeys, to bemoan the fact that as a historical author, historicals seem to be going out of favour having experienced a high for a few years, but to be interested in emerging trends—”I’ve noticed readers gathering at the paranormal/fantasy/dark romance tables”.

We write because we want to tell our stories, in my case, contemporary romances with heat and heart. That passion isn’t dependent on sales, but sales show that readers want to hear what we have to say., and that gives you a buzz that can’t be replicated. I was blown away when one woman stopped at our table and said “you’re on my list” Wow!

Would I do it again? Yes.

Would I choose to share a table? Definitely.

Did I sell any books? Not as many as I would have liked. More than I thought I might. My top sellers were Taylor’s Law & Grace Under Fire—The Anderson Sisters.

Best part? Unabashed sharing of our joy in reading and writing romance.

Note: Getting my ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) together:

ARC readers get advance copies of new releases with the request to post an honest review on one of the major sites, for example, Goodreads, Bookbub, Apple, Amazon, Kobo or Barnes & Noble.

If you’d like to be an ARC reader for  my upcoming books you can sign up to Booksprout, where you’ll have a choice of my book or the books of other authors.

Alternatively, you can contact me directly via the contact link on my website. Let me know a little about yourself. I always post the blurb for my next book on the My Books page of my website, so have a read of that and see if Masquerade is a story you’ll enjoy.

By agreeing to be part of my ARC team, you are in no way obligated to leave a review on any site, although I’d appreciate it. I welcome all reviews, good or bad, as long as they are honest.

Find me on

You can also contact me directly via the contact page on my website if you have any other questions.

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Masquerade—giving birth to an elephant

When I spotted this artwork (see website), I immediately thought of my book Masquerade—Choosing Family Book 1. Preorders now available. It’ll drop into your mailbox on 5 March.

I liken getting Masquerade from idea to publication as giving birth to an elephant. Elephants have one of the longest gestation periods of all living mammals—nearly two years. To be brutally honest, at times it seemed like this baby did not want to see the light of day.

The concept was simple—write a series. Identical twins seemed like a good way to start. After all, I had protagonists for two books straight up.

I started with the idea of one identical twin taking the place of another in a perfectly innocent swap. Think—one twin is directing and starring in an advertisement and finds it easier to get her twin to step into the acting role. Why wouldn’t you help your sis?

But drop a pinch of magic into a witch’s cauldron and unexpected things happen.

A second pair of identical twins appeared, this time males. Now I had four leads to play with—gosh, I could make those books multiply.

Early versions of Masquerade got mixed reviews and scores in competition. Some readers loved it and others politely, and not so politely, said rewrite. I even submitted that early version to a major publisher. That was before I realised I write a different kind of book. I got feedback rather than silence, which I took as a positive—an intriguing storyline, too much back story too soon, a lot of characters to be juggling on the page, and too complicated.

So I moved on. I started writing about the second male twin. I gave the usual nods to characters in the first book and introduced some new characters. Quinn, by design had broader appeal, placing second in the Romance Writers of Australia 2022 Emerald Award for unpublished authors.

What to do? Quinn, by design (Book 2) was getting positive attention, but I couldn’t proceed without nailing Masquerade (Book 1). I just couldn’t let Masquerade go.

Then someone reminded me of the old joke:

Q. How do you eat an elephant?

A. One bite at a time.

I took a deep breath. I reread the critiques and did a monumental rewrite, pulling it apart and stitching it back together. I did more research, took a road trip, retracing parts of the route taken by my mutually attracted but wary couple. I stripped out complexity, I added lightness in the form of more dialogue, and upped the sensual beat. Inkspell Publishing’s editor helped with the final polish.

My baby elephant is ready to rumble in the jungle, and I’m delighted with how she turned out. I’d love to know what you think of Kate and Liam’s story.

Notes: 

  1. Privacy Policy update—I have updated the privacy policy on my website, added terms and conditions and refreshed a few pages for legal and aesthetic reasons. Have a look around to see what’s new or different.
  2. Book signing: I will be at the Australian Romance Readers Association (ARRA’s) A Romantic Rendezvous in Sydney on 10 March 2024.

These multi-author signings will be held in three other cities Brisbane (9 March), Melbourne (16 March ) & Perth (17 March) and will feature up to 30 authors at each event. Meet a new author or come along and say hello to someone you know and love. You can find the full list of signing authors here: https://australianromancereaders.com.au/events/arr2024/. Tickets are now on sale: https://www.trybooking.com/1123090

3. Getting my ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) together:

ARC readers get advance copies of new releases with the request to post an honest review on one of the major sites, for example, Goodreads, Bookbub, Apple, Amazon, Kobo or Barnes & Noble.

If you’d like to be an ARC reader for Masquerade—Choosing Family—Book 1. Release 5 March 2024, you can sign up to Booksprout, where you’ll have a choice of my book or the books of other authors.

Alternatively, you can contact me directly via the contact link on my website. Let me know a little about yourself. I always post the blurb for my next book on the My Books page of my website, so have a read of that and see if Masquerade is a story you’ll enjoy.

By agreeing to be part of my ARC team, you are in no way obligated to leave a review on any site, although I’d appreciate it. I welcome all reviews, good or bad, as long as they are honest.

Find me on

You can also contact me directly via the contact page on my website if you have any other questions.