Spring Clean for the Peach Queen
Page 40
‘I’ll let you know my decision,’ I said.
He nodded but the hand still hadn’t moved, and I realised Angus was offering me the chance to be sure. The chance to understand myself and make the call to keep him or give him up, using the one technique I trusted.
Eyeing him, I took his hand experimentally in mine. It gave me a gigantic, marvellous, infinite spark of joy.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to acknowledge that the land I love, on which I live and work, is Whadjuk land. I honour the traditional owners past and present for their resilience and courage since their sovereignty was stolen in 1829.
Ideas for stories and characters don’t come from nowhere. Whenever I read books, or meet people, or do research, I find inspiration in what I learn. I’d like to acknowledge a few instances of this inspiration.
Firstly, thank you to the town of Donnybook in Western Australia, for the inspiration behind the Peach Queen and Ambassador ideas. Donnybrook hosts regular Apple Festivals which, for many years, included an Apple Queen contest for the town’s young women. A woman I once worked with, who hailed from Donnybrook, told me her story of winning the crown and how the contest was eventually superseded by the Apple Ambassador – a role open to both women and men.
I must also acknowledge the Kondo movement. While my home has never seen the benefit of such a declutter (and probably never will), the popularity of Kondo’s method certainly informed some of the themes and events in my story.
As for bringing the book into the world, I must first thank my agent Alex Adsett for believing in it and pitching it to publishers. Thank you to my beta readers (Trevor and Kath) for their encouragement. Huge, amorphous gratitude to the whole Pantera team, for being exactly the publishers I needed – for being progressive and change-oriented. Thank you to the leadership of Pantera for caring about the world and our future generations – and for putting their money where their mouth is. Thanks to Lex Hirst, publisher at Pantera Press, for her support and powerful structural notes, and for joining in the occasional rant about the state of the world (with gusto). Thank you to Anna Blackie for her hardcore copyediting and correcting my tendency towards long sentences. Thank you to Kate O’Donnell for proofreading with an eagle eye, picking up typos, inconsistencies and errors with extraordinary skill. Thank you to Alissa Dinallo for the stunning cover design – it’s everything I wanted and more. And thank you to Katy McEwen, rights manager, for her excellent efforts (already!) in bringing Peach Queen to audio format.
I definitely need to acknowledge my family and friends. Trevor, Georgie and Lucie – thank you for the times you just dealt with it when I was ensconced deep in writing or editing mode. To my parents and siblings, extended family and friends, thank you for cheering me on and bragging about me. To my workplace, the wonderful Girl Guides WA, and its volunteers and staff – thank you for supporting my writing and books (have you noticed that ‘Girl Guides’ is mentioned in every book so far?). To Tess and Jennie, thank you for your treasured friendship. To the other beautiful Australian authors I’ve become friends with over the past few years, thank you for accepting me into the fold.
Lastly, to my loyal readers, thank you for buying my books and allowing me to turn my most favourite thing to do into a career.
Book Club Questions:
1. Take a look at Lottie’s spring-cleaning list on page 18. What are some things you would spring clean from your life? Alternatively, if you were spring cleaning your life, what are some things you would definitely hold on to?
2. Pris tells Lottie, ‘What’s past is past: it’s the here and the now that matters.’ Do you agree?
3. Choose your favourite (or least favourite) character and describe them in three words.
4. In what ways are Charlize Beste and Lottie Bentz different?
5. Discuss the different parent-child relationships featured in the book.
6. Why do you think Mrs B took Lottie in?
7. How did Jai’s death affect Lottie? Do you think it was his death, or everything that followed, that pushed Lottie back to Bonnievale?
8. What does Lottie learn about friendship? What does she learn about staying true to who she is?
9. Do you think Lottie should give up on acting? Why/why not?
10. Do you think Penny was wrong for how she treated Lottie?
11. What do you think of Angus’s policy?
12. What do you think the future holds for Lottie and Angus?
Sasha Wasley was born and raised in Perth, Western Australia. She completed a PhD in feminist literature at Murdoch University in 2006, and went on to work as a copywriter on topics ranging from mine safety to sex therapy.
Sasha’s debut novel was published in 2015, after which she gave up her copywriting business to pursue her fiction writing career.
Sasha is passionate about levelling the playing field for members of the community experiencing disadvantage. She is an Ambassador for the Books in Homes Australia charity which provides books of choice for children in disadvantaged circumstances to keep in their home libraries. Today, she lives and writes in the Perth hills region with her partner and two daughters. A lover of animals, Sasha spends her free time pottering in the garden with her flock of backyard chickens.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, dialogue and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, organisations, events or locales is coincidental.
First published in 2021 by Pantera Press Pty Limited
www.PanteraPress.com
Text copyright © Sasha Wasley, 2021
Sasha has asserted her moral rights to be identified as the author of this work.
Design and typography copyright © Pantera Press Pty Limited, 2021
® Pantera Press, three-slashes colophon device, and sparking imagination, conversation & change are registered trademarks of Pantera Press Pty Limited. Lost the Plot is a trademark of Pantera Press Pty Limited
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A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry for this work is available from the National Library of Australia.
ISBN 978-0-6486769-4-2 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-0-6486769-5-9 (eBook)
Cover Design: Alissa Dinallo
Publisher: Lex Hirst
Editor: Anna Blackie
Proofreader: Kate O’Donnell
Author photo: Trevor O’Sullivan
Typesetting: Kirby Jones
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