Rebecca Rosenberg’s fascination with women who challenge convention has led her to write historical novels celebrating glorious women of past days – Charmian London, the unsung collaborator of writer Jack London’s work, and Baby Doe Tabor, once the richest woman in America.

Hi there I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today Rebecca talks about losing everything in last year’s California’s fires, how writing helped her pull through, and her latest project, the story of the five remarkable widows who created Champagne. That's right . . Bubbles, the drink.

Six

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

Recovering from the disastrous California firesHow 'writing preserves her equilibriumThe remarkable women she writes aboutFun places to visit from her booksThe secret of her successWhat she'd do differently second time around

Where to find Rebecca Rosenberg:

Website: http://rebeccarosenberg.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebeccarosenbergnovels/

Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7652050.Rebecca_Rosenberg

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/rebecca-rosenberg

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: But now, here’s Rebecca. .  Hello there Rebecca and welcome to the show, it’s great to have you with us.

Rebecca: [00:01:48]

Hi Jenny. I'm so excited to be here. I can't believe you're all the way

in Auckland and I'm in California. That's amazing.

Rebecca Rosenberg - Historical author

Jenny: [00:01:56] I know, and not just in California but on a lavender farm in California. That conjures up all sorts of wonderful images for me. And I'm just wondering what stage are you at with the farm at the moment? Are the bushes in bloom at the moment?

Rebecca: [00:02:10]

Ok so this is a crazy story, but our house and the entire farm burnt down

in those big California fires.

Jenny: [00:02:21] Oh

gosh Wow…. No . . ..

Rebecca: [00:02:24]

So that was pretty devastating. We have five acres of lavender and we

have a beautiful big lavender painted barn - or we used to have.

But every single thing burnt to the ground. Everything. Our house was actually made out of brick and tile and stone, but even it is down to the ground.

Rising from the ashes . . .

Rebecca and husband Gary in their lavender fields - before the fire....

But the good news is that we are replanting this month. So I

am so excited and I am going to share pictures of that because it's just

thrilling to be planting the lavender again.

Jenny: [00:03:03] My goodness I didn't pick up on that on your blog! I've can't have been looking closely enough! That's a big thing to go through isn't it?

Rebecca: [00:03:12] It has been a crazy year I've looked in five rental houses. It's been a lot but we're at this point where the house will be finished in September and our lavender field is going to take a whole new shape. I'm so excited. Instead of regular rows, we're doing concentric circles. Can you believe that? So it's gonna be fun to try something new.

Jenny: [00:03:41] You probably haven't had much time to devote to your books, but turning to the writing, was there once upon a time moment when you decided that you wanted to write fiction? And if so was there a catalyst for it.

Rebecca: [00:03:55] The catalyst was that my girlfriend and I decided, let's see, that was about 12 years ago. We decided that we would write novels together. And actually, this book that's coming out this month, Gold Digger, The Remarkable Baby Doe Tabor. was the book that I started writing 12 years ago. It was a fun thing that we did. We would meet every week and read our scenes and we just started that way.

And then I got hooked on it and started taking all sorts of

writing classes and going away for weekend workshops.

Falling in love with writing

The Secret Life of Mrs London