Sulari Gentill

2015 Christmas Book Suggestions & Ice Cream Cake Recipe!

Margareta-Admin — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 00:39:29 +0000

2015 Christmas Book Suggestions & Ice Cream Cake Recipe!

Margareta-Admin Tue, 22/12/2015 - 11:39 am

Amid 40 degree heat (with NO air conditioning I might add) we partied our way through the first family Christmas celebration yesterday. It was so much fun, with lots of laughter and jokes being shared around the Christmas tree and dinner tables.

That was AFTER they’d all managed to slog their way down the drive and negotiate the electrified bungy cord gateway keeping the cattle from entering the house yard. My brother-in-law from Brisbane (all 6’2” of him) was the only one who rang me from 100 metres away. ‘Ummm … this gateway? How do I open it?’

‘There’s a plastic handle. Grab hold of it and then drop the cord.’

‘Handle? Ummm … I don’t want it to bite me.’

‘You need me to come and save you?’

‘Yep.’

City slickers, I don’t know …

Christmas Book List

Last week I mentioned I’d give you a few book ideas to consider for your Christmas present list. I’ve let the side down this year a bit. Being away doing the mustering season in north western Australia from June to October, cut into my reading time in a large way.

BUT, I can give you a few recommendations based on the reading diet of both myself and a few others close to me whose reading tastes I admire.

Wild Lands, Nicole Alexander

My husband loves Nicole’s books and Wild Lands, her 2015 release, was no exception. For the lover of sweeping Australian saga novels with historical overtones.

The Secret Years, Barbara Hannay

My Great-Aunt adored The Secret Years. This contemporary and historical dual narrative moves from outback Australia to Cornwall, London to war torn Papua New Guinea in a story based on family, heroism and love.

The Saddler Boys, Fiona Palmer

My go-to girl of rural fiction, Fiona Palmer, has once again delivered the goods with this well-rounded lovely rural love story which packs a punch.

Close Your Eyes, Michael Robotham

It’s no secret that thanks to my amazing webmistress/assistant, Karen, I am a HUGE Michael Robotham fan. A man who beat Stephen King to the prestigious CWA Gold Dagger Award in 2015 for his standalone novel Life or Death. Close Your Eyes is another masterpiece. If you love, or have someone in your family who loves crime fiction, this incredibly talented Australian author is your man and this is your book.

(Karen - If you've not read Shatter (from earlier in this series) you might want to start there - which will be no trial!)

The Cuckoo's Calling, Robert Gailbraith

Aka J K Rowling, Robert Galbraith is my new literary love. I couldn’t put these books down. Cormoran Strike is my new Jack Reacher. Sigh. (Lee Child novels) These two books are from previous years but I suggest you start with The Cuckoo’s Calling so you can enjoy the series to the max.

The Silkworm, Robert Galbraith

What I want to read over Christmas …

I really want to read this book. The reviews have been fabulous and I have enjoyed Tricia’s other rural novels.

Between the Vines, Tricia Stringer

Set in and around the world famous Ghan train, deep in the Australian outback, Judy Nunn always delivers well researched, captivating Australian sagas.

Spirits of the Ghan, Judy Nunn

A master at work – the blurb of Kate Morton’s new release has me intrigued and I ADORE the cover.

The Lake House, Kate Morton

As you can probably tell from my comments as well, my webmistress is quite a fan of Crime Fiction. She's added a couple of recommendations that might work for fans of my books as well.

Historical Crime fiction set in England around the Suffragette Movement, Dody McCleland is a qualified doctor working as an autopsy specialist in a time of massive change for women. Beautifully researched and elegantly written, this is a great series from WA based Felicity Young.

A Dissection of Murder, Felicity Young

A Few Right Thinking Men, Sulari Gentill

Another Australian historical crime series, written by ex-lawyer and Truffle Farmer Sulari Gentill who lives in the stunning Snowy Mountains, these books are written with great historical authenticity and a beautifully pitched touch given that they sometimes cover very tricky subject matter.

And it wouldn't be a newsletter from me without a recipe!

Margareta's Ice Cream Cake

Ingredients:

4 litres of vanilla ice-cream

400 g of chocolate honey-comb pieces, chopped into chunks

or 200gms chocolate honey-comb pieces (chopped) and a bag of maltesers

220g bottle of chocolate Ice-Magic

Fresh berries & icing sugar

Put 4 litres of ice-cream into 2 big bowls (Half ice-cream between the two). Leave to soften for 10 minutes (don’t let it melt).

Gently fold in the chopped honeycomb (&/or maltesers). Grease a 26cm spring-form tin. Line base and sides with 2 layers of baking paper. I suggest you go 2-3cm above the edge of the pan with the paper, creating ‘hungry-boards’, so you can get all that yummy ice-cream into the tin.

Spoon ice-cream mixture into the tin and level with a knife or spatula. Freeze overnight.

Just before serving tip ice-cream cake from tin (I removed sides of tin along with the paper, laid a plate on the ‘top’ and tipped the cake upside down so the bottom became the top.) Drizzle immediately with Ice Magic, allow a minute or so to harden then top with fresh fruit. Sift icing sugar over the fruit to finish.

This cake goes ultra well with plum pudding but it would be terrific with any other desert or just by itself.

Note: You can replace the honey-comb/maltesers with other lollies or chocolate bar treats. Let your imagination run wild!

Around the state in (nearly) seven days - ROSE RIVER TOUR & Lardner Park Dates

Margareta-Admin — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 04:28:28 +0000

Around the state in (nearly) seven days - ROSE RIVER TOUR & Lardner Park Dates

Margareta-Admin Fri, 13/03/2015 - 3:28 pm

* NEWS FLASH *

ROSE RIVER - is in the top 5 on the Australian Best Sellers list!!!

And it's sitting at No 8 on Random House's in-house best-sellers list.

Our Gippsland based book is rubbing shoulders with heavyweights like the Fifty Shades Trilogy, James Patterson's latest and Danielle Steele. There's even a Man Booker Prize winner (Richard Flannagan's Narrow Road to the Deep North)...

I'm trying to stay calm here ... but you know, that's such a wonderful thing for a rural based, laugh-out-loud, heart warming story about the thrills and spills of life on the land to be hanging out in that kind of company. {smiley} ... So please forgive me, but, dash it, I can't do the calm thing any longer. I'll just have to jump around and yell a bit here on my hill - WOO HOO!!! YA HOO!!!

You readers are the best!

Oh and it's even made it to your TV screens! Yep. ROSE RIVER Is currently screening across Foxtel, (which I don't have, but hope a lot of Australians do have and take a little notice of ... {smiley})

Oh dear, I'm feeling a bit dizzy. All this dancing around is too much and now the cows are looking at me all weird ...

Ahem.

Settle down sunshine. {smiley}

Thank you, thank you, thank you all of you wonderful, supportive readers. It's such a thrill to know that you still love to read our stories.

Now a bit of a catchup as life's been at break-neck speed since ROSE RIVER came out.

ROSE RIVER LAUNCH

It was such a buzz to catch up with around 180 wonderful readers and mates at the Blue Gables Winery, Upper Maffra West, for a fabulous afternoon event to to launch ROSE RIVER into the big wide world. What a day!

I started to chat with people as soon as I arrived, moving my way from table to table, thanking people for coming to support us on the day. By the time I'd gone around once, more people had arrived and I was just about to head off round again, but found out it was time to be interviewed by well-known former radio identity Penny Monger! I'm really sorry that I didn't get to chat with everyone who came on the day, but I do hope you all enjoyed yourselves. I have heard tell that everyone had a great time and Penny did a fabulous job of the interview, drawing out the inspirations and stories behind the writing of ROSE RIVER. What fun we had!

I was also thrilled to have in attendance fellow Gippsland author Barry Heard (WELL DONE THOSE MEN amongst other titles) and his lovely wife. And yes, we just had to get lots of photos!

ROSE RIVER TOUR PART 1

Monday morning dawned bright and clear (until the muttering started), and it was time to head off on the first leg of the ROSE RIVER book tour. With a Toyota Corolla as our hire car, it took a LOT of pushing and shoving to get two women, two suitcases, boxes and boxes of books and all the associated paraphernalia into the car ... but we did it ... eventually (sucked in tummies due to seats being pushed so far forward), we took off at around 9am. With my good friend Jen as co-pilot, Albury was our first stop after a beautiful drive over Mount Hotham (the wildflowers were spectacular). I just HAVE to mention the homemade ice-cream at Morrie's place in Harrietville. It is superb. It could give the ice cream I found outside Bundberg in QLD on last year's book tour a run for it's money! Morrie's is a MUST stop if you're in the vicinity. It's even worth driving from Glenmaggie for!

After a lovely night with the Dymocks Albury book club, we travelled onto Grenfell where we were met by librarian Ann, who had arranged the most delightful event. Ann gave me the very best introduction I have ever had in my entire career (books or otherwise) and the luncheon looked just delicious. Unfortunately we had to move on, but we were greeted in Bathurst by Kathryn at BooksPlus and her lovely staff, with a cuppa plus a divine homemade carrot cake! YUMMY! Oberon, Mudgee (where we managed to lock ourselves out of our room whilst wearing P.J.'s!) and then to Wellington we travelled.

It was here I met the most talented group of ladies who had formed the local Wellington craft group nicknamed SABLE - Stuff Accummulated Beyond Life Expectancy {wink} Their craft work was out of this world.

Onwards to Dubbo (after losing the non-descript white Corolla for a good 10 minutes :)), and a lady who had travelled 5 hours from out the back of Bourke to hear my talk, buy all my books and say g'day. My oh my, was I chuffed (and amazed). Turns out she also breeds some of my most favourite cattle (Santa Gertrudis) and her husband loves old machinery (just like H) and was setting up a museum. I can feel a trip to Bourke coming on sometime in our future. {smiley}

A four hour drive out to Griffith library for a talk (with a little stop at a delighful homewares shop called Kristy's Cottage in West Wyalong where I did some bank balance damage ...ho hum ...) and then it was time to head east again. Peter and staff at the incredible Collins Bookstore in Wagga made us very welcome (Swoon, this is the bookstore to end all bookstores) and I signed piles and piles of books.

Jugiong Writer's Festival was next on the itinerary where I met up with Freda Marnie Nicholls (LOVE SWEAT AND TEARS etc.), Peter Rees (THE ANZAC GIRLS etc.), Tim Fischer and Sulari Gentill (ROWLAND SINCLAIR series). It was a beautiful day for an inspriring and well-run festival.

Canberra and the Romance Readers Convention was the last stop on the list. A panel with fellow rural authors Barbara Hannay, Cheryl Adnams along with US author supremo Victoria Dahl was a highlight.

Finally at 4pm Sunday we set the bonnet of the Corolla for home, landing over the farm's cattle grid at 11.10pm on Sunday night. We dodged a few roo's but we were finally home. Whew!

ROSE RIVER TOUR PART 2

This week (March 18 - March 21, 2015) we are off again. Western and South Western Victoria is our destination with events at Waurn Ponds, Ballarat, Horsham, Hamilton, Warrnambool, Colac, Gisborne and Fountain Gate. Please see the appearances page for details. As you know by now, I love to meet the readers of my books. I really hope to meet you somewhere and we can chat about the inspirations behind ROSE RIVER, writing, publishing, and anything else we'd care to waffle on about!

ROSE RIVER TOUR PART 3 - LARDNER PARK FARM FIELD DAYS 26TH - 29TH MARCH, 2015

I will be at Farmworld, Lardner Park, Warragul for the full four days, that's when I haven't ducked away for 10 minutes to check out boots, shirts, hats, plants, wood stoves and interesting cattle .

We will be at our usual spot in the General Interest Pavillion (GIP17). Look for the red and white gingham table cloths and me sitting up my rustic, handmade signing table. We have a gorgeous NEW Farmworld pack to giveaway this year with every copy of ROSE RIVER sold (as long as stocks last). So get in early for some nice treats! Love to see you there!!!

AND REVIEWS ...

If you've read ROSE RIVER and liked it, I'd love you to place a review on Goodreads, the Random House Website or iBooks/Amazon (if you read it as an ebook). The links are all on the book page here. Just a few words would be great ... It really helps we authors and makes the job of choosing books easier for other readers to know someone has read and enjoyed a book before them. Thank you so much.

Onwards the book tour rolls ...

Until next week, if I don't see you before!

Margareta x

Sulari Gentill

2015 Christmas Book Suggestions & Ice Cream Cake Recipe!

Christmas Book List

What I want to read over Christmas …

Margareta's Ice Cream Cake

Leave a Reply

Around the state in (nearly) seven days - ROSE RIVER TOUR & Lardner Park Dates

* NEWS FLASH *

ROSE RIVER LAUNCH

ROSE RIVER TOUR PART 1

ROSE RIVER TOUR PART 2

ROSE RIVER TOUR PART 3 - LARDNER PARK FARM FIELD DAYS 26TH - 29TH MARCH, 2015

AND REVIEWS ...

Leave a Reply

Sulari Gentill

2015 Christmas Book Suggestions & Ice Cream Cake Recipe!

Christmas Book List

What I want to read over Christmas …

Margareta's Ice Cream Cake

Leave a Reply

Around the state in (nearly) seven days - ROSE RIVER TOUR & Lardner Park Dates

*** NEWS FLASH ***

ROSE RIVER LAUNCH

ROSE RIVER TOUR PART 1

ROSE RIVER TOUR PART 2

ROSE RIVER TOUR PART 3 - LARDNER PARK FARM FIELD DAYS 26TH - 29TH MARCH, 2015

AND REVIEWS ...

Leave a Reply

* NEWS FLASH *