How beautiful is this photograph!
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Great news…yesterday my publisher at Allen & Unwin emailed congratulations…Castle of Dreams has had a great first week of sales…of course I can’t say how many but she is very happy…
I’ve had so many comments about Castle of Dreams since it was published: people have fallen in love with Vivien, her sister Rose, and the man they both love, American soldier Robert Shine, they love the different backdrops, and they love the story. And for me, storytelling is what books are all about.
The idea of the story came to me after a visit with my daughter to Paronella Park. A Catalonian immigrant, Jose Paronella, built a castle in the rainforest there in the early twentieth century but it was destroyed by a cyclonic flood in 1946. Walking around the ruins of the castle I became aware the past lingered all around and while my characters didn’t intrude on my conciousness that day I’m sure they were whispering in my ear wanting their story told.
It was several months later that the idea for the story finally came to me and my three main characters stepped out into the light. Light ended up being a motif in Castle of Dreams. Robert means bright, shining, so I gave him the surname Shine. Robert Shine, how I love that name. Robert comes from a place in Northern California called Paradise which is near the Feather River where his family cabin is situated.
Vivien, in Arthurian legend, was the name of the Lady of the Lake, an enchantress who was the mistress of Merlin, and I’ve always loved that story. The name I had the most trouble finding was Rose. Her original name was the only name in the book that my editor, Christa Munns, at Allen & Unwin suggested I change. And, she was right, it was the only name I’d changed several times during the writing of Castle of Dreams and still wasn’t sure about. We tossed around several names one of which was Rose, a name we both loved, and exactly the right name for Vivien’s sister. I do recall that Scarlett O’Hara originally started off as Pansy O’Hara!
My editors have told me that Castle of Dreams is a character driven novel which it is but I also think the atmosphere of the rainforest is a great backdrop and of course the main thing is the story. I love the idea that stories are carried down through generations of people through storytelling. Myths, legends, oral stories that are told around the fire at night before the days of writing and books read in the evenings before television was invented.
I loved writing Castle of Dreams. It came to me, as these things sometimes do, in a moment of serendipity when I visited the beautiful ruins in the rainforest of far north Queensland but it took a few months of looking back over my shoulder until my characters stepped out into the light. And I’m so glad they did!
Good writing and reading,
Elise
what elise wrote 