• Blog
  • The Power Age
  • All books
  • Events
  • Media
  • Contact
  • About

Kelly Doust

Kelly Doust

Tag Archives: HarperCollins

Fictional women

04 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by kellydoust in Books & films, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Dressing the Dearloves, HarperCollins, Precious Things, Women in fiction, Writing

header1Part of the process I went through with writing female protagonists in both novels was that they had to be made more ‘likeable’ through various drafts. Yep. Because the standard in commercial fiction is to create warm, likeable female leads… whaa?

I was recounting this to a male friend recently and suddenly felt embarrassed. Why the pressure to be so likeable and, well, soft around the edges? Especially when I don’t think we put men under the same scrutiny. Kathleen Turner says something similar in this excellent interview here, but it’s not uncommon: when a woman’s firm and knows what she wants, there’s a certain element of wariness surrounding her, an idea that she might be difficult. Words like ‘ambition’ are bandied about, and not positively. Whereas a man will be called decisive or powerful for exhibiting the same behaviour. Things are certainly changing, but we’re not there yet.

Maggie, my lead in Precious Things is a busy working mum juggling a multitude of balls in the air. Sometimes, that makes her more blunt than other characters who aren’t dealing with the same pressures, and less patient with her loved ones. And yet, I felt that need to soften her up and sway the readers’ empathy towards her at all times. Similarly, in my second novel, Dressing the Dearloves, Sylvie suffers a massive career failure and loss of confidence. It makes her self-absorbed and prickly at times, but I worried there was a danger that readers would turn against her, rather than feeling on her side if I let it happen too often. I was more comfortable this time making her irritable when the situation called for it.

My characters aren’t perfect people; they’re flawed. Of course they’re not, otherwise what would be the point of telling their stories and going on a journey with them for the duration of a novel? And besides, who’s ever really good 100% of the time? Perfect, polite characters would make for very boring reading indeed. Instead, these women are grappling with doubt and harsh, critical self-judgement. They’re still learning how to be in the world, in one way or another. They’re not Manic Pixie Dream Girls. They’re grown women with real problems that need to be fixed, and while one point of fiction is certainly escapism, these stories are rooted in the real world. I genuinely hope they speak to the women reading them, and writing overly sweet, unrealistic female characters would probably make real women feel frustrated and potentially even worse about themselves. So I walk that line.

Part of my own journey in life has been to gravitate towards the upbeat when I’m feeling sad or down. That’s not just me; it’s science. We know that harsh, jangly music puts us in a fractured state. And that watching the news or a particularly violent film can do more harm than good. What we feed ourselves with – in books or in film, in what we watch or listen to and the people we surround ourselves with – matters. But I don’t want to write shallow stories, or light and fluffy characters who are simply there to be enjoyed. I want complex narratives and characters that stay with you. Who sometime help readers come to a better understanding of themselves or the world. What do they say? You teach what you most need to learn, and I’m learning just as much as the reader is.

So I want to write women I can be proud of. Flawed and striving to be better and sometimes socially awkward or messy at times, but strong, potently powerful women who drive their own destiny rather than waiting for things to happen. Not perfect, but perfectly good role models.

Because to fail and fail again, and still keep trying – that’s true beauty, right? I think we need to allow people a little leeway as they make their way in life. Whether they’re overwhelmingly likeable or not.

And the new novel is… Dressing the Dearloves

23 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by kellydoust in Books & films, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Belinda Alexandra, Dressing the Dearloves, Fiction, HarperCollins, Novel

Excited to finally share with you the cover and blurb for my new novel, out in September with HarperCollins (what did I say here? PINK! Bisous, HarperCollins, and bisous to Belinda Alexandra for the kind cover quote).

About the book

Failed fashion designer Sylvie Dearlove is coming home to England – broke, ashamed and in disgrace – only to be told her parents are finally selling their once-grand, now crumbling country house, Bledesford, the ancestral home of the Dearlove family for countless generations.

Sylvie has spent her whole life trying to escape being a Dearlove, and the pressure of belonging to a family of such headstrong, charismatic and successful women. Beset by self-doubt, she starts helping her parents prepare Bledesford for sale, when she finds in a forgotten attic a thrilling cache of old steamer trunks and tea chests full of elaborate dresses and accessories acquired from across the globe by five generations of fashionable Dearlove women. Sifting through the past, she also stumbles across a secret which has been hidden – in plain sight – for decades, a secret that will change the way she thinks about herself, her family, and her future.

Romantic, warm, and glamorous, moving from Edwardian England to the London Blitz to present day London, Dressing the Dearloves is a story about the corrosiveness of family secrets, the insecurities that can sabotage our best efforts, and the seductive power of dressing up.

Kelly Doust, author of Precious Things, spins another warm, glamorous and romantic mystery of secrets, love, fashion, families – and how we have to trust in ourselves, even in our darkest of days. One for lovers of Kate Morton, Belinda Alexandra, Fiona McIntosh and Lucy Foley.

You can pre-order a copy here.

Better Reading Book Club Live

03 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by kellydoust in Books & films

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Better Reading, Book Club, Book Review, Catherine Milne, Cheryl Akle, Grief, HarperCollins, Novel

We read and reviewed this beautiful novel about grief, loss and forgiveness recently for Better Reading Book Club.

Jesse Blackadder’s Sixty Seconds tells the story of a child drowning in a backyard swimming pool, and the family left behind. As older brother Jarrah, father Finn and mother Brigit make sense of what has happened, we see them question who they are to each other when everything changes. A moving and ultimately hopeful novel with a wonderful coming-of-age story woven through its pages. Four stars.

For our full review, please see here:

The path to publication: a timeline

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by kellydoust in Books & films, Other, Writing

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Getting published, HarperCollins, Literary agents

Inspiration for one of the historical chapters in Precious Things: Anna May Wong in the 1930s

Inspiration for an historical chapter in Precious Things: Anna May Wong in the 1930s

One of the topics I’m always interested to hear other authors talk about is how their novel came to be published, and all the ups and downs along the way. So I thought I’d share with you the long, painstaking and rewarding journey that led me to write Precious Things.

October 2009: Initial seed of idea pops into head. Post throwaway comment on blog: ‘One day I’ll write a novel about a cheeky little frock who gets about and lives in more cities than I ever will – won’t that be fun?’ Don’t give it much more thought, but short while later publisher friend sends email asking if I’m serious and asks to meet. Happy accident makes me commit to starting.

Early 2010 – end 2012: Get busy with other book projects and freelance writing. Put novel aside. Ignore nagging feeling that I really should be writing fiction.

August 2012: Pick up novel again. Finish first few chapters and think it is brilliant, surely best first draft anyone has ever written. Feel great.

September 2012: Join writing course at Faber Academy at Allen & Unwin called Bootcamp for Your Novel, just to keep me motivated. Have to share work for first time and realise how totally awful it is. Plunged into pit of despair. Delete first 15,000 words.

February 2013: Have about 60,000 words I’m tentatively proud of. Pluck up courage to show them to another friend in publishing. She tactfully tells me it needs major re-writing and a whole new structure if it’s going to work. Plunged into pit of despair again, but get to work re-drafting. On a roll.

May 2013: Feeling on top of the world! Have 90,000 words and plan for last few chapters, and fairly certain all but done. Make insane mistake of saying this on Facebook page, thereby ensuring another full year of writing and re-drafting.

August 2013: Start sending ‘first’ draft to agents in Sydney and the UK, hoping they will take me into their author stable. Success! UK agent reads and loves book! Makes some big suggestions for re-working the structure and sends me on my way. Work solidly for next few months changing the book as per my fabulous new agent’s suggestions.

December 2013: Finally hear back from UK agent about last draft. She’s changed her mind. Tells me book is not commercial enough for her to sell as is. Wants me to re-write, cutting out my main protagonist, Maggie. Search soul. Decide she’s not the agent for me. We part ways.

January 2014: Have a small car accident and get spinal injury. Back in spasm and neck is messed up for next five months. Can’t write, can’t do much of anything. Feel miserable and become hermit. Take up meditation and try to become Zen master. Go on family holiday to Europe. Tentatively research places for book while I’m there but mostly forget about writing. Come home a new person with neck better, able to write again. Forget spurious promises made during injury to work with impeccable posture, and go like hammer and tong once I return. Send book off to agents again. Mostly silence, and then: rejection after rejection. In the pit again. Still not Zen master (clearly).

August 2014: Have email offers from not one but two agents in London on the same day, asking me to sign with their agencies! Have Skype calls with both, and finally decide upon perfect agent. More thrilled than thought was humanly possible. Agent asks clever in-house editor to help me refine novel. Spend next few months re-writing it.

January 2015: Agent helps me sign two-book deal with HarperCollins Australia. HarperCollins comes back with more structural advice. Re-work for next few months.

April 2015: Hand in latest draft. Start work on novel two.

June 2015: Lovely HarperCollins editor comes back with more suggestions. Re-work and submit again.

September 2015: Editor comes back with more changes. Hand in mammoth edit of un-typeset pages. Think phew, I’m almost done.
Publisher starts sending out book to other authors for pre-publication endorsements we can put on the cover.
Designers at HarperCollins start working on cover image.

October 2015: Agent takes book to Frankfurt Book Fair. Meets German publisher who wants to publish Precious Things.

November 2015: Go speak to the good people at HarperCollins about my book, begging their sales team to do their best job at selling it to major chains and retailers across Australia for next Mother’s Day. Cross fingers.
Australian publisher and agent convince HarperCollins Holland to publish there.
Pages are typeset. Editor asks me to look over them again. Finally hand in last big edit. Think phew, I’m done.

December 2015: Bolinda Audio agrees to buy the rights to publish the audio book worldwide. Love my agent. Pre-publication endorsements start trickling in.

January 2016: Final changes have been made but I need to do one last proofread and edit. Think phew, I’m done. Last endorsements come in from a bunch of authors I admire. Totally thrilled.

1 February 2016: Go to print – yippee! Really am done. Start publicity process same day, working on a ‘making of’ free e-book and answering media questions about the book. Not really done.

21 March 2016: Precious Things to hit bookstore shelves across Australia.

1 April 2016: official publication date. Media campaign begins. Hurrah!

Have you got a similar story to tell? Please share. Like I said, I’m fascinated by this process.

Some news

29 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by kellydoust in Art, Books & films, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Gregory & Company, HarperCollins, Precious Things

Early artist's impression of the collar / coronet by my dear, talented friend, Jessica Guthrie

Early artist’s impression of one of the characters in Precious Things by my dear, talented friend, Jessica Guthrie

Exciting news, which I can finally share with you lovelies! This was published in today’s Bookseller & Publisher:

Two-Book Deal for Kelly Doust

HarperCollins is thrilled to announce that we have acquired Kelly Doust’s debut novel in a two-book deal for ANZ rights via Gregory and Company, UK.

Precious Things, to be published in May 2016, is a sweeping, absorbing and lush work of commercial fiction, telling the story of a beautiful embroidered collar and its journey through time in the hands of the women who created it, loved it, wore it and lost it—and the modern-day woman who can’t help but be intrigued by its mysterious past.

HarperCollins Publisher Catherine Milne says: ‘Kelly is well-known to booksellers as the author of the Crafty Minx books, and it’s wonderful to see this talented writer move into fiction—which as it turns out is her natural home.’

Kelly says: ‘I am delighted to be publishing my fiction with HarperCollins and thrilled to be working with Catherine Milne and the rest of the HCP team.’

I’m editing at the moment – more to follow soon x

Kelly Doust

IT’S COMING!

Next book publishedNovember 5, 2019
The Power Age, Published by Murdoch Book

Instagram

No Instagram images were found.

Facebook

Facebook

Category Cloud

Art Art, theatre & culture Books & films Design Fashion Fashion, markets & shopping Food Inspirations markets & shopping Music Other Publicity & events theatre & culture Travel Writing

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel