Deborah Challinor is a best-selling historical novelist whose books consistently rank in New Zealand’s top five for fiction, many of them making it to number 1. Her latest book, The Jacaranda House, is her seventeenth and it’s a story of mothers and daughters, dark secrets and the healing power of love, set in the King’s Cross Sydney club scene of the 1960s.

Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler, and today Deborah talks about how she was discovered by her publisher because she wrote an “entertaining” PhD thesis, and why she loves her flawed characters.

We’ve got three e-Book copies of the new book, The Jacaranda House, to give away to three lucky readers. Enter the draw on The Joys of Binge Reading website or on our Binge Reading Facebook page.

You’ll find links to Deborah’s books and website there too. While you’re there, leave us a comment or a suggestion. We love to hear from our listeners, and we endeavor to get back to everyone who contacts us.

Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode:

How a chance comment led to a publisherThe joy of writing seriesWars 'not won on foreign battlefields' National honours a big surpriseCrime and suspense writers she enjoysThe fascination of the mortuary train

Where to find Deborah Challinor: 

Website: http://www.deborahchallinor.com/

Facebook: @DeborahChallinorBooks

Email: [email protected]

What follows is a "near as" transcript of our conversation, not word for word but pretty close to it, with links to important mentions.

Jenny Wheeler: But now, here’s Deborah. Hello there Deborah, and welcome to the show. It’s great to have you with us.

Deborah Challinor: Thank you very much.

Introducing Deborah Challinor

Deborah Challinor - popular author of women's fiction

Jenny Wheeler: I always like to start with this question because it's one that readers love to know the answer to. How did you start with your fiction writing? We will cover the fact that you were already doing a lot of academic writing, but how did you start in fiction? Was there some once upon a time moment when you thought I really must do fiction, or I won't have realized what I want to do in life?

Deborah Challinor: I suppose it started when I was doing my PhD thesis and my supervisor, the late great Laurie Barber, told me it was actually readable and quite entertaining which is apparently rare for a PhD thesis. My thesis was published as a book with some modifications, with the boring bits taken out, and that turned out to be quite successful and got to number four on the New Zealand nonfiction list.

After that I thought maybe I can do fiction, so I got myself an agent who at that time was Glenys Bean and with her I got a contract with Harper Collins, New Zealand. That turned out to be the three-book series, Children of War, and away I went.

Jenny Wheeler: That's fantastic. As you've mentioned that first book, let's talk about it now. That was Grey Ghosts. It was research you did into the experiences of New Zealand vets in the Vietnam war. What did you find when you wrote that book? What were your conclusions or discoveries?

Vietnam War 'life-changing' event

Deborah Challinor: When I went into that piece of research, I expected to find that all veterans had been badly psychologically affected by that war. That's not what I found. I found that some had, and some hadn’t. That was an interesting finding. I found that those who had been impacted were really badly impacted and those that hadn't been weren’t, or else they were, and they weren't telling me. But it was a life-changing event for all of them in one way or another.

Jenny Wheeler: That's interesting. Was there any way you could measure what it might have been that made the difference between whether they were badly impacted or not? Was it simply the experiences they had, or was it something else in the environment?

Grey Ghosts - the story of NZ vets in the Vietnam w...