A Place of Her Own
Page 30
Casablanca (1942)
Directed by Michael Curtiz, with Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid
When they were making Casablanca, nobody realised it would become a classic. Although the constantly changing script might have annoyed the actors, it ended up imparting an air of mystery and romance which still enthrals after more than seventy years. For me, it’s the character actors such as Henreid and Rains who give life to the film, but I’m also drawn to the complicated relationship between Bogart and Bergman. And, of course, who couldn’t be charmed by the final scene? Like Angie, I’ve often pondered Ilsa’s dilemma. Bogart or Henreid? How could you possibly choose?
RICHARD’S BOOKS
The Untold Want by Walt Whitman appears in Book XXIII, ‘Songs of Parting’ in the Leaves of Grass collection (1900).
The Great Gatsby (1925) is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s gem of a novel. It has been filmed several times, including the Redford version in 1974.
Clochemerle is a charming novel by French author Gabriel Chevallier, first published in 1934.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As I come to the end of this trilogy, there are many people to thank. For their friendship and encouragement, I’m indebted to Judy Allen, Pelagia Billiris, Mary Anne Bunn, Gilly Burke, Sandra Coleman, Margaret Grainger, Jo Hill, Kerrie James, Suzanne Kelly, Lena Kotevich, Judy MacGraw, Marilyn McCann, Jan Nolen, Jan Norris, Joyce Spencer, Mary Stevenson and Chrissie Whipper.
Special thanks to the wonderful Carrolline Rhodes, who has read all my manuscripts, including several versions of this novel, and contributed invaluable ideas for improving the text, and to Sean Doyle of Lynk Manuscript Assessment Service, who is only an email away whenever I need sound advice. I’m also indebted to my good friends, Sue Schipp and Angelika and Richard Roper, for reading the early drafts of this book and sharing illuminating insights into characterisation and plot. Meanwhile, my writing partner, Jan Dawkins, has offered perceptive and candid advice, often at short notice, and coaxed me away from my desk for regular ‘airings’.
A big thank you to the immensely talented team at Random House Australia: my lovely publisher, Beverley Cousins, publicist, Kirsty Noffke, editor, Elena Gomez, designer, Christa Moffitt, and marketer, Jake Davies. You are all a joy to work with.
To my literary agent, Sheila Drummond, many thanks for being an incomparable mentor, guide and friend.
I’m grateful to Ullstein Verlag for their charming German translation of Mr Chen’s Emporium (Amys Geheimnis) and to Reader’s Digest for including Mr Chen in the June 2013 Select Editions.
Thank you to all those kind readers from Australia, New Zealand and Germany, who’ve taken the time to send me their comments about my books. You may not realise it, but your generous words are a constant source of encouragement and motivation.
Finally, heartfelt thanks to my amazing family. I couldn’t have done this without your patience and loving support.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Deborah O’Brien is an Australian writer, visual artist and teacher. Born and raised in Sydney, she majored in French and German at the University of Sydney, where she also completed a graduate Diploma of Education.
She divides her time between the city and a country cottage on the outskirts of a spring-fed creek, which is home to several platypuses.
She is also the author of Mr Chen’s Emporium and The Jade Widow.
www.deborahobrien.com.au
If you enjoyed the Millbrooke Trilogy . . .
Also by Deborah O’Brien
Mr Chen’s Emporium
In 1872, seventeen-year-old Amy Duncan arrives in the gold rush town of Millbrooke, having spent the coach journey daydreaming about glittering pavilions and gilded steeples. What she finds is a dusty main street lined with ramshackle buildings.
That is until she walks through the doors of Mr Chen’s Emporium, a veritable Aladdin’s cave, and her life changes forever. Though banned from the store by her dour clergyman father, Amy is entranced by its handsome owner, Charles Chen . . .
In present-day Millbrooke, recently widowed artist Angie Wallace has rented the Old Manse where Amy once lived. When her landlord produces an antique trunk containing Amy’s intriguingly diverse keepsakes – both Oriental and European – Angie resolves to learn more about this mysterious girl from the past.
And it’s not long before the lives of two very different women, born a century apart, become connected in the most poignant and timeless ways.
Mr Chen’s Emporium is a captivating novel of forbidden love and following one’s heart . . .
AVAILABLE NOW
Also by Deborah O’Brien
The Jade Widow
A captivating historical novel of pioneering Australian women finding their way in a man’s world, from the author of the bestselling Mr Chen’s Emporium.
It is 1885, and Amy Chen is still in black, more than a decade after the death of her beloved husband, Charles. But her widow’s weeds belie a determined young woman with a big ambition: Amy is going to build the grandest rural hotel in the colony of New South Wales, complete with its very own ‘ascending cabinet’.
Meanwhile, her best friend, Eliza Miller, has dreams of her own – to become one of Australia’s first female doctors. However when she returns to Millbrooke from her medical studies at the Sorbonne, she finds the job she thought was hers has been taken . . . by a man.
Over the course of two turbulent years both women will face difficult choices – love or duty? Career or marriage? Is it possible to have it all . . .?
AVAILABLE NOW
If you enjoyed The Millbrooke Trilogy look out for . . .
The House on Carnaval Street by Deborah Rodriguez
From Kabul to a home by the Mexican sea . . . A life-affirming, sea-change memoir by the author of the international bestseller The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul.
When her family faces kidnap threats after the publication of her first book, Deborah Rodriguez is forced to flee Kabul, leaving behind her friends, her possessions, the beauty school she helped found and her two beloved businesses: a beauty salon and a coffee shop.
But life proves no easier ‘back home’. After a year living on top of a mountain in the Napa Valley and teetering on the edge of sanity, Deborah makes a decision. One way or another she’s going to get the old Deb back.
So, at the age of forty-nine, she packs her life and her cat Polly into her Mini Cooper and heads south to a pretty seaside town in Mexico. Home is now an unassuming little house on Carnaval Street.
There she struggles to learn Spanish, works out with strippers and spends her Sunday nights watching clowns. And maybe – just maybe – the magic of Mexico will finally give her what she’s always dreamed of: a life on her own terms . . .
AVAILABLE IN JUNE
Also by Deborah Rodriguez
The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul
A heart-warming novel about a little café in Kabul, and the five extraordinary women who meet there . . .
In a little coffee shop in one of the most dangerous places on earth, five very different women come together.
Sunny, the proud proprietor, who needs an ingenious plan – and fast – to keep her café and customers safe . . .
Yazmina, a young pregnant woman stolen from her remote village and now abandoned on Kabul’s violent streets . . .
Candace, a wealthy American who has finally left her husband for her Afghan lover, the enigmatic Wakil . . .
Isabel, a determined journalist with a secret that might keep her from the biggest story of her life . . .
And Halajan, the sixty-year-old den mother, whose long-hidden love affair breaks all the rules.
As these five discover there’s more to one another than meets the eye, they form a unique bond that will forever change their lives and the lives of many other
s.
AVAILABLE NOW
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version 1.0
A Place of Her Own
9780857982889
Copyright © Deborah O’Brien, 2014
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
A Bantam book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au
Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at http://www.randomhouse.com.au/about/contacts.aspx
First published by Bantam in 2014
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
O’Brien, Deborah, author.A place of her own/Deborah O’Brien.
ISBN 9780857982889 (ebook)
A823.4
Cover design by Christabella Designs
Cover images: (woman) © Elisabeth Ansley/Trevillion Images;
(flourish) © Kozhadub Sergei/Shutterstock.com; (rings)
© Natalia Deriabina/Shutterstock.com; (house) © 4WD Guy
Internal illustrations by Deborah O’Brien
Typesetting and eBook production by Midland Typesetters, Australia
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