Margaret Ann Spence with her new release JOYOUS LIES

I reviewed Margaret Ann Spence's first book on Monday - now she's here to talk about her second book JOYOUS LIES

 

Trained as journalist, it never occurred to me I could get away with making things up.

 

But about ten years ago that is what I started to do. I wish I could say I had ten books written in those ten years, but it takes me a while to finish a story! I’ve written three full length novels, the first of which will never see the light of day. (Thank goodness.) My practice novel. Like anything else though, the more you practice the more competent you become – even if what is produced on the page comes from pure imagination.

 

My books are set in different places and have very different characters. Yet they all have female protagonists who are stranded outside their comfort zone and must find their way back to a sense of belonging.

 

In my first book, Lipstick on the Strawberry, my heroine Camilla is an English caterer estranged from her family, culturally adrift in the United States, and recently divorced. I wanted to explore how someone who is bombarded with the psychological message that she doesn’t belong can dig herself out of that sense of displacement and arrive at a sense of well-being.

 

In Joyous Lies (published February 15) my characters all refuse to conform. In my story, Maelle, an aspiring botanist, believes plants communicate and nurture their young. Maelle’s research is way out there, and her grandmother Johanna and her friends at the commune Joyous Woods were originally Vietnam War resisters who created a working organic farm from the Northern California wilderness using nothing but hand tools. They raised their children in an equally unconventional way. Maelle, brought up on the commune from the age of ten after her mother died, is confronted with the possibility that her mother may have been killed as an animal-rights activist, and investigates. While she uncovers the truth of what happened, she wonders if parents’ idealism can justify the suffering of their children.

 

With such disparate characters and storylines, the usual reader question, “Is this book autobiographical?” is off-base. On the other hand, my interests are on display in these two books. A love of cooking, baking, gardening and crafting run through the pages. And for Joyous Lies, I did do a lot of learning about current botanical research. And I had fun learning about the craft of spinning and weaving, raising rabbits and goats. I took classes in cloth dyeing, and baked bread.

 

However, while fiction is by no means reportage, certain truths about human behavior are revealed in the best writing, whether it be a novel or a non-fiction book or article. When I started writing fiction, I found to my amazement that the freedom it gave me unlocked something else — the ability to find the truth behind façade, to find integrity for my characters through struggle. So I tell people that while my books are not about real people, I write fiction to find the truth.

 

Joyous Lies Blurb: Maelle Woolley, a shy botanist, prefers plants to people. They don't suddenly disappear. Raised on her grandparents' commune after her mother's mysterious death, she follows the commune's utopian beliefs of love for all. Then she falls for attractive psychiatrist Zachary Kane. When Zachary claims her mother and his father never emerged alive from his father's medical research lab, Maelle investigates. What she discovers will challenge everything she believes, force her to find strength she never knew she had, and confront the commune's secrets and lies. What happened to love? And can it survive?

Buylinks: https://books2read.com/u/me7RoR

 

Bio: 

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Margaret has lived in the United States since the age of twenty-three. She’s lived on both East and West Coasts and enjoys Arizona winters. When she’s not at her desk she tends an unruly garden, cooks up a storm in the kitchen, and cherishes time with her family. A love of baking, Boston (where she used to live), and all things British inspired her award-winning debut novel, Lipstick on the Strawberry, also published by The Wild Rose Press.

 

My Links: https://www.margaretannspence.com

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