GUEST BLOG: What’s On Your Bucket List? by Tea Cooper Plus Giveaway!

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My bucket list has been constantly changing over the last few years. When I retired from teaching it revolved entirely around my writing plans:

Get a print book published by one of the Big 5 publishers
Secure a second (maybe a third and a fourth) book contract
Be offered an advance
Get a contract without having to write a synopsis (I hate writing synopses!)
Make a best-seller list in Australia

As I established my writing career my bucket list contracted, and then expanded:

Make a living out of my writing
Conquer my fear of talking to large groups
Have a print book published outside Australia
Win an award for one of my books
Make an international best-seller list

I’m happy to report that I’ve emptied that bucket too and am about to start filling it again which leads me very nicely into the question ….

How do you keep your written world from encroaching on your life?

For the last five years, my written world has taken up a lot of my world. I approached it as a job, not a hobby, now I’ve reached the stage where I am able to make decisions about my writing life. I decided that my best stories evolved when I had time to ponder and plot. So I now only write one book a year and I take the time to enjoy my research, especially trips to places like the National Gallery, the Australian Museum, and the Mitchell Library in Sydney. I still set my books mostly in the area of Australia where I live—the Hunter Valley—and I delight in walking (driving, riding) the paths my characters take and visiting the places where my stories are set. Due to the restrictions of the last year, I’ve had to rely very much on memory for any places overseas so my bucket list is beginning to refill with research ideas.

I was born and grew up in England. I came to Australia, after spending a year teaching in India and travelling in South East Asia, in my mid-twenties. So my new bucket list looks something like this:

Spend more time with my two beautiful grandchildren and my daughter in Sydney
Return to England—most especially London, Cornwall, and Somerset, the places I remember from my earlier life. (Somerset plays an important part in The Girl in the Painting.)
Visit India again. (I’d love to set a book in Rajasthan.)
And keep writing one book a year.

My latest book The Cartographer’s Secret released in Australia in November 2020. It will be available on North American bookshelves in November 2021. Meanwhile, I am about to edit my next Australian release The Fossil Hunters and I am in the very early stages of writing my 2023 Australian book House of Butterflies while I wait for travel restrictions to be lifted and I can attack my new bucket list.

Publication Date: March 9, 2021

A young prodigy in need of family. A painting that shatters a woman’s peace. And a decades-old mystery demanding to be solved.

Australia, 1906

Orphan Jane Piper is nine years old when philanthropist siblings Michael and Elizabeth Quinn take her into their home to further her schooling. The Quinns are no strangers to hardship—having arrived in Australia as penniless immigrants, they now care for others as lost as they once were.

Despite Jane’s mysterious past, her remarkable aptitude for mathematics takes her far over the next seven years, and her relationship with Elizabeth and Michael flourishes as she plays an increasingly prominent part in their business.

But when Elizabeth reacts in terror to an exhibition at the local gallery, Jane realizes no one knows Elizabeth after all—not even Elizabeth herself. As the past and the present converge and Elizabeth’s grasp on reality loosens, Jane sets out to unravel Elizabeth’s story before it is too late.

From the gritty reality of the Australian goldfields to the grand institutions of Sydney, this compelling novel takes us on a mystery across continents and decades as both women finally discover a place to call home.

“Deeply researched. Emotional. Atmospheric and alive. . . Tea Cooper transports the reader to a sweeping landscape of turn of the twentieth century Australia—from the raw realities of the Australian goldfields to the sophisticated institutions of Sydney—and does so with an expert pen. Combining characters that are wonderfully complex with a story spanning decades of their lives, The Girl in the Painting is a triumph of family, faith, and long-awaited forgiveness. I was swept away!” —Kristy Cambron, award-winning author of The Paris Dressmaker and the Hidden Masterpiece novels

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The Girl in the Painting

About The Author Tea Cooper Tea is an award-winning Australian author of historical fiction. In a past life, she was a teacher, a journalist, and a farmer. These days she haunts museums and indulges her passion for storytelling. She is the bestselling author of several novels, including The Horse Thief, The Cedar Cutter, The Currency Lass, The Naturalist’s Daughter, The Woman in the Green Dress, and The Girl in the Painting.