Barbara Hannay - Uplifting Romance

Barbara Hannay's “sparkling feel-good emotional romance”  has attracted more than 12 million readers to her uplifting hope-filled stories. Hi there, I’m your host Jenny Wheeler and today in the Joys of binge reading Barbara talks about the power of romance and how in days of pandemic, more than ever before, readers want to be uplifted. Six things you’ll learn from this Joys of Binge Reading episode: How Barbara got started on her 60 book careerWhy we still want to believe in loveNorth Queensland escape part of her charmWorking hard never hurts a careerThe "feel-good" romance she enjoysWhy readers won't want to read about the pandemic Where to find Barbara Hannay:  Website: http://www.barbarahannay.com/ Facebook: @BarbaraHannayauthor  Twitter: @BarbaraHannay 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 Barbara. Hello there Barbara, and welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us. Barbara Hannay: Thanks Jenny. Lovely to be here. Barbara Hannay - sparkling emotional romance Jenny Wheeler: We both live in an extraordinary time of pandemic. You're in Australia and I'm in New Zealand and we're both in either isolation or lockdown. Can you give the listeners a picture of where you are and how Covid 19 is the affecting you? Living in tropical Queensland Barbara Hannay: Well, we're living in Townsville, which is a city in North Queensland and we're in an apartment, but it's a ground floor apartment with patios, front and back, where I've got lots of pot plants to keep me happy. And we're also very close to Townsville Strand, so we can go to beautiful walks along the waterfront and around Rose Bay. We're well set up in terms of being able to exercise and just get out a little bit. Unfortunately, we can't see our family though, which is hard. Jenny Wheeler: You've got wonderful climate in Northern Queensland though, haven't you? What are the temperatures like at the moment? Barbara Hannay: At the moment? Well, it's a wonderful climate in winter, though summer can be a bit humid and tropical.  We're still in the early thirties at the moment. 12 million and more books sold Jenny Wheeler: Oh, right, still pretty warm. Turning to your writing, and you've really established a fantastic career. I saw somewhere that you had 12 million books sold, and that was a while ago now. So was there a Once Upon a Time moment when you just decided you needed to write fiction or your life would somehow not quite have the full meaning it should, or was it always there as a long term desire? Barbara Hannay: It's actually a little bit of both. I did love telling and making up stories right from when I was little. Even before I knew how to write. I used to draw pictures on pieces of paper and pass them through the gaps in orange boxes and make my sisters sit down and watch these movies that I'd created. Then later when I joined the Brownies, the first thing I wanted to do was the writer's badge, causing my Brown Owl some consternation until she found it tester for me! The Summer of Secrets - Barbara Hannay rural romance. Writing 'wasn't in the family'