Intriguing Tidbits

Temporary Intrigue really grew out of two things: one was a wish I had, several years ago, to buy two paintings I saw in a small art gallery in a historic riverside town near the Australian city of Newcastle where Temporary Intrigue is set. I’m no art connoisseur but the paintings, depicting Australian native animals, struck a special chord with me. I went home agonising over the price that I couldn’t afford but very much wanting those paintings on my wall. When I finally decided I would buy them, and hang the expense, I went to the gallery only to find – of course – they had been sold to someone else. They haunted me until I wrote them into Temporary Intrigue.

The other trigger was my mother’s habit of visiting her great aunt once a week, taking me with her when I was a child. While they talked, I retreated to my great aunt’s sunroom where she kept piles of women’s magazines, filled with short, romance fiction stories. I read and read, weeping over the sad parts but always confident of the prospect of a happy ending, a prospect that rarely failed to materialise. I became addicted to romance fiction. One day, I decided, I would write a romance novel of my own . . .

Temporary Intrigue by Judy Huston releases this week at Moonlit Romance.