Australian Romance Author Showcase with…Rachael Treasure

As part of Australian Romance Month, Romance Specialist Haylee Nash will be interviewing one Australian Romance author per day. Much like a beauty pageant, each author will be using their charm, wit and grace (and the power of social media) to take home the Booktopia Romance Bestseller crown. Booktopia invites bestselling author of rural romance Rachael Treasure to the stage.

1. Describe the perfect date.
My perfect date is a sticky date. Sticky Date is my favourite. It’s warm, it’s rich and it tastes delicious with that all that caramel sauce swilling over it and the ice cream melting beautifully in tantalising pools of creamy sweetness. A sticky date is even more perfect when served on the six-pack belly of a reclining cowboy wearing just his jeans under the Montana summer sun with his muscled horse grazing peacefully nearby. That’s tasty and it’s a perfect double date.

2. Which of your books are you most proud of?
My latest book, The Farmer’s Wife because it is the sequel to Jillaroo and because, under the guise of romance, it carries a message for humanity about our agricultural systems and how if we don’t change, we humans as a species won’t survive. No more sticky date puddings for the planet!  I’m equally proud of Jillaroo as that book, written from my heart and my girlhood wildness, sparked an onslaught of submissions from rural women wanting to be writers. After Jillaroo’s runaway success, Australian publishing houses at last ‘had their ears on’ (to quote my country music heartthrob, Toby Keith). Jillaroo blazed a trail in helping publishers recognise the wants and needs of readers beyond the Great Divide in regional areas and opened the door for scores of other rural writers.

3. What is the hardest thing about being a romance author?
The male heroes in my books. They are all buffed and muscled and always ready to rock and roll with their country gals. To touch one of my male characters would reveal a hardness beyond your wildest dreams ladies! But there is always a softness in their hearts. (Sigh… melty sticky date moment.)

4. What is the best thing about being a romance author?
I get to play all day in my head with nice fellas and move them around, exactly where I want them. And I can do it all in my jeans and uggies with my hair stuck up in a crazy pony tail and they still love me. The characters also get to be my puppets for the more serious issues I want to raise within the romance genre… like rural suicide, rural decline, infidelities in relationships and the renaissance in agriculture that is happening at a grass roots level. That’s the best thing… to use romance as a device to draw people in, then get people to THINK.

5. Who (aside from a significant other) do you swoon over?
Denim with a dash of artistic creativity is the ideal. My country music lads always catch my breath… Toby Keith as mentioned above, Luke Bryan and top of the country pops in swoon factor is Tim McGraw… he’s so sweet to his wife Faith Hill, loves his kids and is fitter than a Mallee Bull for a man of his age. Dang he looks good in jeans and a t-shirt. And his voice! Oh… like a sticky date… to die for.

6. Tell us something very few people know about you.
On days that are challenging I wear Wonder Woman undies. Bat Girl sometimes gets a run too.

7. Describe your writing style in three words.
Channelled from above.

Click here to buy The Farmer’s Wife from Booktopia,
Australia’s local bookstore

8. What is your definition of a good book?
One that makes the world a better place by taking the reader through a journey and guiding them to their own epiphanies about themselves and others.

9. Which author would you invite to a dinner party and why?
Louise Hay. She radiates serenity and compassion and she has created an entire publishing house based on love. Plus if I stuffed up my cooking she’d be very forgiving.

10. Finish this sentence: I would do anything for love, but I won’t do_____
…sheep.

Rachael Treasure is a mother to two wonderful little humans, a writer, a regenerative agriculturalist, and a lover of all things in life. Rachael wants to channel love into everything she creates so that she can share it with the world. She’s also really good at taking the mickey out of herself, so she laughs a lot… even at the tough stuff life dishes up.

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