Today I’m asking Fin J Ross 5 questions about her new book!
1. What’s the name of your latest book – and how hard was it to pick a title?
My newly released novel is Billings Better Bookstore and Brasserie. I specifically wanted an alliterative title, so my bookstore name had to start with ‘B’. The title was originally Billings Better Bookstore and Cafeteria, but given that the story features alliterative verses heading each chapter, it was a no-brainer that it should become Brasserie.
2. If you could choose anyone from any time period, who would you cast as the leads in your latest book?
Given that my main character, Fidelia Knight, ages from nine-year-old to 19, that’s a tricky one as casting would necessitate a child actor and a late teenage actor. Mackenzie Thomas (currently appearing in the ABC’s Operation Buffalo) could fit the young Fidelia. Kiera Knightly or Emma Watson as older Fidelia. As for Jasper Godwin, I picture Terence Stamp, Jason Isaacs or Sam Neill.
3. What five words best describe your story?
Inspiring, Uplifting, Historical, Mystery, Logomaniacal
4. Who is your favourite fictional team/couple?
Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson – absolutely, without question!
5. What song reflects a theme, character, relationship or scene in your book?
I Gotta be Me
About Billings Better Bookstore and Brasserie
Young Fidelia Knight arrives in Melbourne in 1874, alone except for her treasured companion, Samuel Johnson; well, half of him. To escape servitude, Fidelia hides each night in Bourke-street’s renowned Cole’s Book Arcade. She loves words, you see, and wants to know them all.
What she overhears in Cole’s sets her on a path that will change the lives of everyone she meets, starting with Jasper Godwin, the hopelessly underqualified manager of the new Billings Better Bookstore.
Fidelia’s thirst for knowledge is contagious. She tutors two orphan boys and two illiterate women, inspiring them to unlock their creativity; and her exploration of colonial Melbourne takes her to some unusual places.
Nothing daunts this diminutive genius, except the mystery of what really happened to her parents on the voyage from England.
Buy Billings Better Bookstore and Brasserie
(Amazon US)About Fin J Ross
Fin is a journalist and creative writing tutor, whose day job is running a boarding cattery in East Gippsland.
She is co-author (with her sister, Lindy Cameron) of the true crime anthologies Killer in the Family and Murder in the Family, and author of the fantasy novel A.K.A. Fudgepuddle.
She is a keen short-story writer and has won eight category prizes in the annual Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto Awards, among other competition wins.
She has written an as yet unpublished crime novel, Switchback Road, and is working on a sequel, Open Season, but has diverted her writing attention to an historical novel about Ludwig Becker, a German artist and scientist; one of the five lesser-known men who also died on the Burke and Wills expedition.
Her love of cats extends to breeding British Shorthairs, and in her spare time, she compiles cryptic crosswords.
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