With Castle of Dreams now in book stores across Australia in time for Christmas I’d like to share a few of my favourite excerpts with you (no spoilers):
Castillo de Suenos (aka Paronella Park far north Queensland)
Rose nodded in silent agreement. Castillo de Suenos had no dramatic history, no portraits of ancestors hung on the walls or white busts on plinths, no remote eerie rooms forgotten and uninhabited for centuries, but it was beautiful, largely because of its spectacular rainforest setting: drifts of butterflies flew in through open windows and landed on ornate vases; this morning she’d found a butterfly feasting on a sliced orange someone had left on the kitchen bench. Plants clambered up the walls and swayed through the windows with the breezes; brilliant light flooded through the hummingbird stained-glass window at the front of the castle.
On a night when stars sheltered Castillo de Suenos a ball was held:
The band played on, a Glenn Miller tune now; young couples jived across the black-bean floor and back again. A GI held his girl so low that when she kicked her leg high, her long blonde hair swept the floor.
When the song finished there was a break in the music, and the main lights came back on. The crowd threw back drinks and lit up cigarettes and headed for the buffet.
I wonder who Tom is talking to?
She smiled. ‘What have you come to tell me, Tom?’
‘It’s a long story and one you are entitled to know,’ said Tom. ‘The past can be complicated. People then were the same as people today. They had their secrets, things the believed no one would ever discover . . .’
‘Please, go on, you’ve come a long way to tell me.’
Tom looked relieved, as though he’d been waiting to unlock the past and now the time had come.
One of my favourite scenes in Castle of Dreams:
He told her about mushrooms called hen of the woods and boletes, both much sought after in late summer and fall, and others with folk names: witch’s butter, shaggy mane and bear’s head, and amanita, a white-spotted red mushroom, written about in fairytales , and deadly, he added. ‘Winter brings hedgehogs, also known as sweet-tooth–and, and for those who know how to find them, crops of truffles.’
Seasons Greetings to All
Elise
what elise wrote 