Natasha Lester is a New York Times and USA today best-selling author of historical fiction. She's a master storyteller who loves nothing better than creating strong, daring and enigmatic leading women.

Hi there. I'm your host, Jenny Wheeler and Natasha  talks about the remarkable, true life stories of the woman who underlined her timeline series in the latest Binge Reading episode, women like Catherine Dior, the sister of her much more famous brother, Christian Dior, the fashion designer, who was with the French resistance during World War II.

We've got three eBook copies of Natasha's latest World War II thriller The Paris Secret to give away to three lucky readers.  Enter here. You'll find the show notes for this episode, links to Natasha's books, plus details about how to subscribe to the podcast so you don't ever have to be without a great book you can't put down. 

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

The catalyst that got Natasha started writingWhy finding her niche took timeHer passion for all things FrenchThe fashion designer's intrepid sisterHow a mascara mystery got her hookedWhat she's working on next

Where to find Natasha Lester: 

Website: https://www.natashalester.com.au/

Facebook: @natashalesterauthor

 Twitter: @natasha_lester

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/natashalesterauthor/

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

Introducing Natasha Lester - Author

Jenny Wheeler:  So now here's Natasha. Hello there, Natasha and welcome to the show.  It's so good to have you with us.

Natasha Lester:  It's my absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Natasha Lester - World War II dual timeline mysteries

Jenny Wheeler:  Was there a Once Upon a Time moment, some epiphany when you decided I really do want to write fiction and if I don't do it, I'll have left something undone that's very important to me.  And if so, what was the catalyst?

Natasha Lester:  I did always want to be a writer when I was young.  I wrote all the time. My mum has various samples of books and poems and stories that I wrote right from the time that I learned to write, right through my childhood and adolescence.

But I guess the thing that stopped me from becoming a writer at that time was that I didn't know how to become a writer.  When I left high school there weren't creative writing degrees available at university and so I didn't understand how I could become a writer other than to just sit down and write and I didn't know how to do that.  

So I didn't take the plunge back then.  In fact I did a Commerce degree at university and I worked in Marketing for about 10 or 12 years.  I ended up in Melbourne working for L’Oréal Paris as Marketing Manager for the Maybelline brand of cosmetics, which was a lot of fun for a woman in her twenties.  I had lots of lipstick, more than I could ever have worn in my lifetime. 

Taking the plunge into writing

Then we had to come back to Perth.  My husband had come to Melbourne with me for my job, and then he had to come back to Perth for his job.  It meant quitting my job at L’Oréal and suddenly this moment of opportunity opened up for me where I didn't have a job, I could do something different if I just took the plunge.  So I did take the plunge. 

Rather than getting another job back in Perth, I went back to university and enrolled in a Creative Writing degree because they existed then.  That was the moment.  I had this dream of being a writer but I wanted to find out whether I was any good at being a writer and also if I would actually enjoy it.  Doing a university degree helped me to work out the answer to both of those things, which was, thankfully, a resounding ‘Yes’.  I guess that was the moment when it all began to happen for me.

Jenny Wheeler: That's wonderful, and you have enjoyed great success.