ISABELLA HARGREAVES
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For the love of books

11/3/2016

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If you've read any of these books and enjoyed them, please leave a review on any of these sites:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1nBe6re

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/search?Query=isabella+hargreaves

Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/1pk7UFG

Reviewing a book only needs to be a few words long or a star rating. I'm grateful for every single one!

Thank you,
Isabella H.


P.S. If you're interested, an Isabella Hargreaves Readers' group has formed to discuss my books: https://www.facebook.com/groups/223984487953919/

#historicalfiction, #Historicalromance, #romance
 
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Writing Serendipity?

28/2/2016

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Above: Mail by camel transport - Charleville & district. Source: NAA, Item: 3296500. Below: Early mail coach PMG possibly Charleville. Source: NAA Item: 1650785. Bottom: Earliest known motor mail in Queensland, Isisford to Ilfracombe, 1910. Source: NAA Item: 3025042.
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Ever written something which later you found out was absolutely spot on, but you didn't know it at the time?
I've had this happen a couple of times when writing my historical stories.
The first occurrence happened when I wrote All Quiet on the Western Plains - about a place I had never visited - although I had read extensively about western Queensland and poured over historical photographs.
A month after the novella was published, I travelled to western Queensland for the first time, visiting Blackall, Barcaldine, Aramac, Isisford, Longreach and places in between.
The country was as amazing as I thought it would be and my description of it had been accurate. What a fluke, I thought.
When I came to write the sequel, Journey's End on the Western Plains, also set in 1924, I started the story with the hero,hitching a ride in the mailman's truck.
At the end of the story he applies for the mail run contract and gets the job.
As a writer, I thought it was the perfect solution for my characters and story. Mail contractor was the perfect job for the hero as it allowed him to live in the mythical town of  "Idavale" and regularly visit his family's property at the other end of the mail run.
At the time I thought, oh yeah, he'll have the same chance as anyone else. He's a good bush mechanic, he'll be able to fix any breakdowns.
Recently I attended a talk about early mail services in Queensland in the 19th and 20th centuries, held by the National Archives of Australia in Brisbane.
The NAA have over 1000 photographs relating to Cobb & Co mail coaches, mail men, their horses and trucks and post offices in the collection, plus numerous written records.
What astonished me was the discovery that, after World War I, the Australian Government awarded mail contracts on a preferential basis to returned servicemen - like my hero.
I was gobsmacked by this discovery.
I had got his ideal job so right.
Here was proof that my character would have been awarded that contract - as long as no other returned serviceman had applied at the same time!
As far as I'm concerned, serendipity* in research and writing is a real phenomenon.
Have you had similar experiences?

To search the National Archives of Australia site for records see: http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/search/
*Serendipity:  a happy chance, a happy accident.

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99c - All Quiet on the Western Plains

5/2/2016

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Part 1 of my Western Plains series is now 99c US.

All Quiet on the Western Plains tells the story of Jack Edgarson overcoming his wartime trauma and finding love with heart-sore British nurse Fleur Armitage, after his return to western Queensland from World War I.

The story continues in its sequel, Journey's End on the Western Plains , which is also set in outback Idavale.
In All Quiet, you met Jack's army mate, Bill Carter, who hasn't been able to settle down to any job or return to his family home since he came home from the war. Then he meets Matron Marion Henderson and his life starts to change.


All Quiet on the Western Plains buy links: 
Amazon Oz:
http://bit.ly/1OkElha 
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1kgyb5b 
iBooks:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1061997574
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/all-quiet-on-the-western-plains-1

Journey's End on the Western Plains buy links: 
Amazon, Oz:
http://bit.ly/1OkDYDx
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1HjJvrm
iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1061997251

Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/journey-s-end-on-the-western-plains
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Meet the hero and heroine of All Quiet on the Western Plains

19/5/2014

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Jack Edgarson:
The Great War ended six years ago, but not for me. I relive it in my dreams. If that isn’t enough for any man, sometimes I wake up miles from home after sleep-walking. The time I found an axe in my hand convinced me to move to western Queensland – beyond the end of the railway line. It’s safer for others that way. Now I’m a cattleman running my property with just a couple of temporary stockmen and a cook. I keep to myself. It’s best that I stay away from people.
Well, that’s what I thought until Fleur Armitage, an English nurse, turned up in town. Now, I’m torn between keeping true to my promise to stay clear of people and my compulsion to see her, to hear her soothing voice, to inhale her rose scent that reminds me of gentle summer evenings in England before my war began.

Fleur Armitage:
I’ve come to western Queensland to forget the past. As a nurse, I worked in clearing stations and general hospitals during the Great War and saw a lot of suffering and death. My fiancé was killed in action in 1918 and my sister and her daughters died in a bombing raid on Margate in England. I went home to mother in 1919, but she caught Spanish Flu and soon passed away, like so many others. I felt adrift in the world and didn’t dare get close to anyone in case they were taken from me. Until Jack Edgarson. He saved my life. Now I want to know who he is – to solve the enigma. He’s not making that easy.

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All Quiet on the Western PlainsĀ  blog tour

15/5/2014

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Join me on tour 15-21 May to launch All Quiet on the Western Plains. As usual there's a book giveaway drawn at the end of the tour.

"One war, two battle-scarred hearts, one chance for happiness. "

First stop is:  http://bookwormbridgette.blogspot.com/2014/05/blog-tour-all-quiet-on-western-plains.html




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All Quiet on the Western Plains released!

11/5/2014

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It gives me great pleasure to announce the release of my historical, rural romance - All Quiet on the Western Plains - set in western Queensland, Australia in 1924.

"One war, two battle-scarred hearts, one chance for happiness."

English nurse, Fleur Armitage, wants to escape all reminders of the Great War, which killed family and friends; by living as far from its reminders as possible - in outback Queensland. Jack Edgarson is a pastoralist, war hero and damaged man. Suffering from nightmares and sleep walking, he lives in isolation, fearful he may harm someone. Through a chance meeting, their lives become entangled. They come to share their love of the wide western plains, but dare they love each other?

Available from Amazon and all good ebooksellers.


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Shell-shocked: Australia after Armistice

26/4/2014

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Today, I visited the exhibition 'Shell-shocked: Australia after Armistice' at the Cobb & Co Museum in Toowoomba. As the exhibition claims "after the war comes the battle". Many struggled post-war with physical and mental health problems, mothers grieved for sons with no known burial place, and war widows tried to learn skills to support their families. This was a great interest to me as post-war trauma is a theme of my forthcoming novella, All Quiet on the Western Plains. The exhibition runs until 6 May.  See details at: http://www.cobbandco.qm.qld.gov.au/Events+and+Exhibitions/Exhibitions/2014/01/Shell+Shocked#.U1ttyUt-9aQ . Let me know your thoughts if you have seen the exhibition.

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Researching Australian soldiers

22/4/2014

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PictureMemorial, Crows Nest, Queensland.
Several years ago, I started researching three Brisbane men who had different experiences of World War I. One served in an Engineers Corps – earning a Military Medal; another served as a motor cycle messenger in the Motor Transport Corps and was ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ in 1918; while the third was an ambulance driver in the Balkans – a theatre of the war about which we rarely hear. They also all served on the Australian home front during WWII.

Researching these men was made easier by the wonderful resources provided by the National Archives of Australia. Digitised copies of the service records for Australian WWI servicemen are available online – free - making researching your ancestor, or person of interest, simple. These can be found here: http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/explore/defence/service-records/army-wwi.aspx

World War II records are similarly available online, if someone has paid for the initial digitisation. If the record is not yet digitised, getting them done costs a nominal fee.

Once you know the division and unit in which the soldier served, it is then possible to find the battalion's history and/or diary which tell where the unit was located at various times.

In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I later this year, the Imperial War Museum has online exhibitions and projects underway. Go to: http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/first-world-war. Similarly, the Australian War Museum has new exhibitions to commemorate the centenary - see them at http://www.awm.gov.au/1914-1918/.

Inspired by reading autobiographies and diaries of Australian soldiers who served in World War I, my novella All Quiet on the Western Plains explores the aftermath of that conflict for an Australian soldier and an English nurse who move to the western plains of Queensland to escape their experiences. Instead, they find each other and hope for the future. Available 1 May 2014 from Amazon and other good book sellers. 

Have you researched an ancestor who served in World War I? I would love to hear about him or her.

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Rural life in 1920s Queensland, Australia

21/3/2014

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PictureSource: A P Dodd, 1940.
During the 1920s, the biggest concern for many people in country Queensland, aside from the weather, was the rapid spread of the pest cacti commonly known as prickly pear. From Mackay in central Queensland to central New South Wales, these plants were multiplying and choking the land. They had been introduced into Australia from North and South America during the nineteenth century. 
Warnings of their capacity to multiply and make good land useless began in the 1870s, but it wasn't until the 1890s that bylaws and legislation requiring their removal were created. By the early twentieth century, the need for a biological control of the pest had been recognised. Although an effective poison to kill the cacti was determined in 1916, obtaining it during World War One was difficult and Australia's manpower and the money to control prickly pear were employed overseas. 
Finally, in 1919, the Commonwealth Government and the governments of Queensland and New South Wales established a joint project, to discover and introduce into Australia biological pests of prickly pear, to control its spread. Achieving this goal was to take 10-20 years, but the introduction of Cactoblastis cactorum and a number of other parasites of the cacti, was an outstanding success.
Not all of Queensland was affected by prickly pear. Open plains were generally spared the infestation - among them the plains of western Queensland. It is here that my latest book, All Quiet on the Western Plains is set. The characters therefore weren't involved in the struggle to control prickly pear that was going on in much of rural Queensland in 1924.
Does your family have a story from the bad old days of Prickly Pear? I would love to hear from you.

All Quiet on the Western Plains - available 1 May 2014 - from Amazon, Steam eReads and Book Srand.

References: 
Dodd Alan P. The progress of biological control of prickly pear in Australia. Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board, Brisbane, 1929.
Dodd Alan P. The biological campaign against prickly-pear. Commonwealth Prickly Pear Board, Brisbane, 1940.
Dodd, Alan P. ‘The Conquest of Prickly-Pear’. RHSQJ, 1945, 3, 5, pp. 351-61. 
Mann, John. The Naturalised Cacti in Australia, Queensland Lands Department, Brisbane, 1970.

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1910s - 1920s Paris fashions

9/3/2014

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While working on my latest book, All Quiet on the Western Plains, I looked at fashions in the 1910s and '20s, and have since found some lovely French fashion studies from the period advertised online. They are from hand-painted pochoirs (stencils) - using gouache and watercolour - dating from circa 1912- circa 1925. I think the fashions are gorgeous! See what you think.
Go to the following link, if you're interested (b.t.w. I have no connection to this business) :
https://www.antiqueprintclub.com/c-23-fashionpochoir.aspx


If you would like further information about pochoir and the journal in which they were published (Gazette Du Bon Ton - Mode et Frivolites) see:  http://antique-print-club.blogspot.com.au/   




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