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The Bordeaux Book Club by Gillian Harvey #Review #PublicationDay

  Happy Publication Day to Gillian Harvey and Boldwood Books for her latest novel, The Bordeaux Book Club!   Love books? The Bordeaux Book Club is seeking new members! When Leah and her husband moved to France, it was with the dream of becoming self-sufficient. But in truth, it’s not the ‘good life’ she’d imagined, as three hours of digging barely yields a single straggly carrot. Worse, her teenage daughter is acting up, and her husband seems to find every strange excuse under the hot French sun to disappear. So when her friend entreats her to join the new bookclub she’s forming, Leah decides it’s something she will do for herself. The chance to make new friends, to drink a few glasses of wine, and to escape into stories that take her miles away from the life she’d thought would be her own happy-ever-after. But the book club is a strange group of misfits. There’s prickly Grace, who lives alone and seems to know everybody and like no-one. Buttoned-up Monica, who says her husba

Meet the Author - Maggie Christensen


I an happy to be welcoming author, Maggie Christensen to Books, Life and Everything today. Maggie's latest novel, Isobel's Promise was published yesterday on August 2nd 2018.


Welcome, Maggie! Would you like to start by telling us a little about yourself and how you started as a writer?



I grew up in Scotland and began teaching primary school there. I emigrated to Australia in my mid-twenties lured by ads of a semi-naked man in gown and mortarboard and the slogan ‘Come teach in the Sun’. I like to tell people I’m still looking for that guy!


I took a couple of degrees, moved to the country and started to lecture in teacher education in a small town university where I met this hunk of a gentle giant who’d moved there from USA to teach in the same faculty as me. At the ripe old age of 37, I’d almost – but not quite – given up hope of meeting my soulmate. Here he was.


After university teaching I became manager of an Industry training organization, and it was when retrenchment and retirement loomed that I began to write fiction instead of course materials, conference papers and reports.


My husband and I now live on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, and when I’m not reading or writing, I enjoy walking along the beach with my husband or having coffee in one of our lovely cafes.



What are you interests apart from writing?


I love reading, and I volunteer with our local library, selecting and delivering books to the housebound.


 What is your favorite childhood book?


I read voraciously as a child – still do! I’m sure my reading fuelled my desire to write. The two books I remember most clearly are Brown Mouse and Brown and White by Frank Jennings. They are now sadly out of print and have become collectors’ items. The first Is a modern-day (not so modern now) Cinderella story and the second is a sequel. I can still picture the pink and white striped cover.




Tell us about your latest book without giving the plot away.


My latest and eighth book, just released yesterday, is Isobel’s Promise. While a standalone novel, it continues the story of Bel and Matt who my readers first met in The Good Sister, although Bel did appear as a minor character in an earlier book, Broken Threads.

In Isobel’s Promise, sixty-five year-old Bel Davison has returned to Sydney after her aunt’s death, and is making plans to sell up her home and business and return to Scotland where she has promised to spend the rest of her life with the enigmatic Scotsman with whom she’s found love.

But the reappearance of her ex-husband combined with other unexpected drawbacks turns her life into chaos, leading her to have doubts about the wisdom of her promise.

In Scotland, Matt Reid has no such doubts, and although facing challenges of his own, he longs for Bel’s return.

But when an unexpected turn of events leads him to question Bel’s sincerity, Matt decides to take a drastic step – the result of which he could never have foreseen.

How do you plan to spend publication day?

We’ll start the day with breakfast at a favourite restaurant by the beach and end it with sunset drinks in another favourite restaurant on the river. We’re lucky to live in a beautiful spot, one to which others come for holidays.

In between, I’ll no doubt be checking sales, marketing and writing what will become book 10.


How difficult was writing your second book- did having one published change how you went about it?

I actually had two books written before I published my first book. I wrote The Sand Dollar when I was facing a redundancy and visited my mother-in-law in Florence on the Oregon Coast. That gave me part of the plot and the location.

I then wrote Band of Gold and decided to publish that one first.

After publishing The Sand Dollar I decided to write another book set on the Oregon Coast based on a minor character in The Sand Dollar. That became The Dreamcatcher.There are now three books in that series and for those who like audio books, The Sand Dollar is now available in audio from Audible, Amazon and IBooks.

I enjoy reading books where I meet characters from earlier books and it’s like meeting old friends, so my readers will find that my characters do pop up in several of my books.





Do you have any other writers as friends and how do they influence your writing?

I have several good friends who are writers. I find the writing community is extremely supportive and I’ve learned a lot since I started. Some of these writer friends live nearby so we can meet for coffee to discuss writing and marketing, while others are friends who I communicate with by email or on Facebook. It’s always a thrill when I manage to meet one of those ‘virtual’ friends face-to-face as I managed to do with a lovely Scottish writer friend Anne Stormont earlier this year. Like me, Anne writes about older women and I love her books. Coincidentally we share the same editor and designer.

The friends who I can meet or email provide valuable guidance during the earlier stages of my writing and we share marketing tips.
If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?



Start writing earlier.




Can you give any hints about any upcoming books you have planned? 

I’m currently having my next book edited. It’s called A Model Wife and picks up the story of Celia who is a minor character in Isobel’s Promise and who appears briefly in Broken Threads. It’s set in Sydney in the midst of the same-sex marriage debate and the hashtag MeToo campaign.

My work in progress is what I plan to be a novella called A Brahminy Sunrise. It will be a prequel to my Oregon Coast Series set on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast where The Sand Dollar begins.

I also have ideas for another Oregon Coast book and, having recently released the audiobook of The Sand Dollar, the first in my Oregon Coast Series, my lovely narrator is currently working to produce the audiobook of the second in the series, The Dreamcatcher.

I’m also planning another book set in Scotland to continue Bel and Matt’s story with a new protagonist.



Do tell us more about what you write.



I write women’s fiction, stories of mature love – sometimes called seasoned romance, love in later life, books for older readers or boomer lit. They are heartwarming stories of second chances, books which celebrate women who’ve chosen to live and love in later life and the heroes worthy of them.

My characters are all over 40 –women and men in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. The books begin by placing my heroine in a challenging situation and the rest of the books takes it from there.

I believe that older women and the events which impact on their lives are often ignored in literature or are stereotyped. Life for older women presents similar and different challenges to their younger counterparts. They still look for a HEA, but theirs may include stepchildren – even teenage stepchildren – and ex partners with their attendant issues. I can also explore those issues which only emerge with years. Issues such as aging and death of parents, retrenchment, retirement, downsizing, grown children, grandchildren, widowhood and the empty nest syndrome.

These are the sort of books I enjoy both reading and writing and I’m delighted that more and more groups seem to be popping up which promote this type of book.

Thanks so much for telling us all about your writing life. It is so refreshing to find an author who likes to writes novels featuring the more mature person!

Book Spotlight- Isobel's Promise


A promise for the future. A threat from the past. Can Bel find happiness?

Back in Sydney after her aunt’s death, sixty-five year-old Bel Davison is making plans to sell up her home and business and return to Scotland where she has promised to spend the rest of her life with the enigmatic Scotsman with whom she’s found love.

But the reappearance of her ex-husband combined with other unexpected drawbacks turns her life into chaos, leading her to have doubts about the wisdom of her promise.

In Scotland, Matt Reid has no such doubts, and although facing challenges of his own, he longs for Bel’s return.

But when an unexpected turn of events leads him to question Bel’s sincerity, Matt decides to take a drastic step – the result of which he could never have foreseen.

Can this midlife couple find happiness in the face of the challenges life has thrown at them?

Book links:  Amazon UK  |  Book Trailer

c. Krista Eppelstun




 You can follow Maggie here: Website
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