Briefly tell us about your book.
Heiress on Fire is the story of Australian billion-heiress Indigo-Daisy-Violet-Amber Hasluck-Royce-Jones-Bombberg (Indigo). Indigo has lived a very sheltered life: she’s a billionaire and her grandmother and then her husband provided every possible financial assistance. She’s never had a paid job. But she’s also had a traumatic life: her supermodel mother has gone through many bad marriages and her father, a billionaire ‘playboy’ (a nice way of saying he was a good looking but over-indulged womaniser) is dead, essentially overdosing on an exorbitant lifestyle.
Indigo’s safe, carefully constructed marriage to her Bran Muffin husband—not delicious or glorious, but reliable and good for you, Dr Richard Bombberg, a kind, quiet, conscientious reconstructive surgeon, a humanitarian and hero to poor disfigured children, a man who irons his sheets, stops at orange lights and travels five kilometres under the speed limit, comes to an end when, in the middle of a cocktail party, she accidentally sets him (and the mysterious redhead he was locked in her gorgeous powder room with) on fire. And then blows them up. And then burns their penthouse down.
The Sydney Detectives investigating the incident have discovered an explosive device in the charred ruins of the penthouse and aren’t buying Indigo’s ‘accident’ story. It’s a choice between arrest and jail or investigating the still-unidentified mystery redhead (whom Indigo thinks is to blame) herself. Problematic choices for a woman who has never had a paid job and whose ability to successfully make toast or drive a car is debatable. This is where Esmerelda comes in.
Hired by Indigo’s semi-retired WOKE semi-Buddhist mother as a ‘personal shopper’ Esmerelda is a recently paroled (by way of the Model Mentor Prison Program), surf talking, Asian-Australian backstreet girl, whose modelling career was cut short by her tendency to punch handsy photographers. Is a skinny jean wearing, sneaker loving, often scary Esmerelda really Indigo’s best choice? Yep. She’s her only choice.
Desperate and mortified Indigo stuffs what’s left of her dignity (she’s been viewed 50 million times on YouTube crawling out of her flaming penthouse on fire and miraculously unscathed, gaining the nickname Heiress on Fire) deep down into her Chanel clutch and along with Esmerelda, traverses Sydney’s upper-class underbelly hunting down clues.
She picks locks (well Esmerelda does), outsmarts a banking leprechaun (eventually), beats-up Sydney’s most feared gangster (thank God for all those years of personal trainers), frees a Yeti, unlocks cryptic clues left by a bizarre insurance exec, breaks into an elite private hospital, sets a cathedral on fire (another terrible accident), bribes a giant fireman and some other stuff.
It turns out that Dr Richard was not really a Bran Muffin husband, turns out he was more fibber than fibre, so who was he? Really? Did his nefarious activities get him killed? And why is Indigo such terrible, lusty widow having explicit thoughts about two wildly different but equally inappropriate men (okay, maybe one is slightly more inappropriate than the other, but still, both are inappropriate), before her husband is even in the ground? And when the dust settles, even if Indigo could get her old responsibility free, coddled, ‘protected’ life back, which she probably can’t, would she want it? Was it the best path? Or is there another way? Does she have any real skills? Can she learn to driver her own life? Or a car. Or a toaster.
What inspired the idea behind this book?
There was a bit of a perfect storm of factors that lead me to write Heiress. I am an insanely big fan of murder mystery novels. I enjoy series novels where I can really develop a relationship with the characters: Harry Bosh – Michael Connelly, Dr Temperance Brennon – Kathy Riechs, Detective Saches and Lincone Rhyme by Jeffrey Deaver, Patricia Cornwell – Dr Kay Scarpetta, Kerry Greenwood and Miss Fisher, Lee Child and Reacher, J D Robb and Detective Eve Dallas. I like action too like Matt Reilly and his Jack West character, Indiana Jones. My absolute favourites combine comedy, murder mysteries and capers: like Janet Evonovitvch (Number series with Stephanie Plum, and Lizzy and Diesel series, Fox and O’Hare).
I had been working as the Head Writer at Health Television Network (HTN) and the Live Host for one of their channels, as well as raising two young children, being the sole breadwinner and looking after a household with my family of origin interstate.
I began getting terrible migraines and my eye started twitching. Soon after the whole left side of my face started twitching – I thought it was stress. My GP sent me off to the neurologist, who then ferried me off for a bunch of tests. There was a problem. There was a mass. He thought it was Bell’s Palsy or a brain tumour. I had more tests. I had to wait a week for those results to come back. It was a rough week. It made me think about my life, and what I was doing, what I was tolerating.
It turned out to be a cluster in the centre of my brain – one of my arteries was wrapped around one of the large nerves. It was causing the migraines and the eye twitching and the spasms. It was permanent. It was exacerbated by stress and bright lights, literally the definition of live TV! There’s a surgery, brain surgery, but it was (and is still) dangerous and the chances of having permanent hearing loss was and is still significant.
It is treated by bi-monthly injections into the face, including some fun ones that feel like they’re going right through your closed eyelid into your eyeball. This along with the spasm’s cause a lack of symmetry. This pretty much put an end to my TV career.
Less than a year later I was diagnosed with another, even more, serious illness. I had to hire a friend to move in and look after my children and stop my Masters studies to be hospitalised for treatment. I found myself spending long periods in hospital where I read and re-read my favourite books and many other murder mysteries and adventure books. Hospital is boring and a bit scary when you’re ill.
One day I just realised that I had accepted so many things as ‘just being’, as ‘being okay’ when they weren’t okay. I wasn’t okay with them. Not anymore. I loved my murder mysteries, who-done-its, and certainly not to be critical of any of the author’s mentioned, who are amazing, but a lot of books, not necessarily the books or authors mentioned, in that genre have a disproportional number of the victims who are women, they’re often brutalised in sexual ways, often quite graphically, at times this involves kids. I couldn’t handle the graphic brutality anymore. I couldn’t handle anything that involved kids anymore and sexual assaults became too much.
It bothered me. Why were such a disproportional number of the victims in these books, women? Why, when women were murder victims, where they so often also stalked, raped, brutalised, held captive, kidnapped or assaulted in some awful way? That didn’t happen to the male characters with anywhere near as much frequency. That annoyed me. Why did we accept that as ‘just being like that’?
When the victims were male it was often because they were wealthy or powerful, and when women or children were the victims it was often because they had no power. That annoyed me. Why did we accept that as ‘just being like that’?
I don’t need the gory details of assaults or attacks or murders or injuries or awful things when I’m already feeling stressed or anxious – as so many of us are these days. I just want the story, the characters, the entertainment, the mystery, without the graphic traumatic visuals. I’d rather skip that and hear something rye or funny. Or have it artfully skirted or implied.
I also wondered why there were so few Asian-Australian characters in books? And on TV. Not dragon ladies or violin playing studious kids, but real people, normal people. Like in real life. Like my life here in Sydney, or at home in Perth where I grew up. Art did not seem to reflect reality. I grew up with loads of kids from SE Asia – everywhere from Vietnam to Laos – some migrants, some refugees.
One of my aunties married a doctor from Singapore. I have Eurasian cousins. They’re funny, kind, eco-warriors into organic food and positive thinking. Clara is pretty handy with a reno, not to mention her dancefloor skill to 80s 90s retro tunes are pretty ace.
I have several close friends with Asian backgrounds. They’re funny, kind, idiosyncratic, original women. Where were those characters? That annoyed me. Why did we accept that as ‘just being like that’?
I also wanted to know where the older female characters were. You don’t disappear after you turn 35 or 45 or 55 or 65 or 75or 85 – although it certainly feels that way. I remember my mum telling me that people just looked through her after 60. That annoyed me. Why did we accept that as ‘just being like that’?
I also wanted to see more first Australian characters – and again – not as stereotypes – but as people, successful people. Quirky people. Individual people. Eccentric people. Just as there are in real life.
Does art reflect life, or does life reflect art? If we kept up these ‘norms’ in our art – our literature, our TV shows, our movies, will this continue to be acceptable? They’re not acceptable to me anymore.
I was fed up with being a victim. I already had enough tough stuff going on in my real life. I didn’t want it baked into my escape hatch.
I wanted women to be empowered. I wanted them to grow stronger. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to laugh some more. I wanted to be entertained. I still wanted a murder mystery. I wanted it set in Australia – all over Australia. I wanted all the things! So, I decided I would write a book that was all of those things.
What was the research process like for the book?
Quite involved. I interviewed sex workers and a brothel owner. I thought it best not to interview people from organised crime and biker gangs, although I had met a few over the years I thought it might be adverse for my health to put myself in their path! Plenty of people had written articles and books and made podcasts, which I read and listened to.
I had to attend many balls and cocktail parties, and date some very attractive men. Exhausting. Luckily that work had been done in my 20s. LOL.
I was a model for about five minutes in my teens and a fashion editor for a few years in my 20s, so I had a bit of knowledge stored up. It all went into the mix.
Then there was fact-checking hundreds of things like German princes, watches, chocolates, churches, clothing, furniture, art, limos, jewellery, European universities, rugs, perfumes, models, surgeries, designers, shoes, medical procedures, thefts, lockboxes, fires, the list goes on.
I am curious by nature, and I do tend to run down rabbit holes! Have to keep that in check!
I’m like a serial killer with my newspaper clippings and sending stories to myself. There are so many fascinating things in the world!
Does the creative process get easier for you with each book?
Yes and no. Great answer, right!
With Heiress on Fire, I took a lot of time developing Indigo and Esmerelda and the other characters. I really need solid backstories. I need to know everything about them. That helps them to ring true, to be 3D, to be crazy without being plastic or obvious, or tinny. It’s hard to be unapologetically rich without being an obnoxious ass. Character, character, character.
They rolled around in my head for some time. One morning I work up and DING they were cooked. Real. Like Pinocchio or the Ginger Bread person. One day they were just made-up ideas, the next day they were real flesh and blood people. Alive. Once they were done, I booked the kids into before school and after school care for three months and I sat down and wrote. Then I edited. Then I used my girlfriends as a focus group. Then I wrote again. Then more girlfriends were hauled in, and more editing.
With the second book, I didn’t know how much I was supposed to say, or not say, about the first book. I hate Spoilers! It was tricky to explain ‘what’s happened so far’ without giving away too much.
The characters are formed, but also evolving. Some series writers choose not to evolve their characters too much, some chose not to age them, some think that readers want the same character in each book. I don’t know what the answer is. In truth, I don’t actually have too much control over Indigo and Esmerelda. I have no idea what they’re going to say or do. I just know they’re going through that door. That’s it. It’s so much fun to write them. When they make me laugh, or when I think, that’s crazy or that’s bananas, I know it’s right. I can feel it.
The third book has been informed by the experience of editing book one and two (although book two if far from finished). It’s then a challenge to make each book better. To keep it bananas but without trying too hard, pushing something that’s artificial. I do a lot of reading of crazy real news. I see and hear and read about people doing truly bananas things, real-life makes the antics the Heiress characters get up to absolutely possible, and sometimes quite sane by comparison.
The third book required more interviews, it would be a bit of a spoiler to say who with – but everyone has been super supportive in giving me their time. I’ve really loved chatting with everyone. Again, I want to have strong empowered female characters who are funny and odd and real and most of all entertaining.
There’s always going to be that larger arc about Richard and the Mediterranean Men’s Club—it’s going to take a little while to unravel it all. It’s not realistic that they’d be able to take that on and solve it in one or two books. We’re talking serious criminals who are running billion-dollar multinational corporations – they’re big business – just illegal. Organised crime is by its very nature, organised. Says so right there in the title! And an Heiress and a Parolee might need a few warmup laps to before they get into the ring! Solving a mystery or two or five will help them hone their skills, to gain confidence, to take on bigger chunks of the arc mystery.
What is something that has influenced you as a writer?
I had a horrible English teacher who gave me Ds no matter what I did. I had an inspirational English teacher who was extremely supportive and really encouraged me to write. I had an amazing Creative Writing professor at university and an amazing Journalism prof. Certainly, they all influenced me.
I read, a lot. I listen to books, to podcasts, to people talking on trains. I love stories.
I have amazing friends who I bounce ideas off, and that is so helpful. Talking it out with them.
I am dyslexic, so that certainly influences the way my brain operates, and how I feel about myself as a writer. I never imagined being able to write fiction for a living. That was really a dream – the exclusive domain of well-funded people or kids who were far more artistic than I. People who got As in English Lit and read Russian. They seemed to be a part of a special club of some sorts. I very much felt like an imposter.
I felt different because I was different. Now I think, why not me? I’ve lived in the world and seen some highly unqualified people in some outrageously important and well-paid positions. I’ve also seen some incredible people in some well-earned positions. I work really hard. It’s okay to be happy. Even if you’re from Irish Catholic stock. 😊
I wish I could tell my younger self that. So, I was more stilettos than Doc Martins, more popular fiction and murder mysteries than Niche more silk than hemp, more resort than camping, more cocktails than beer, that’s okay, that’s who I am. You can’t change who you are, evolve, yes, grow yes, be kind whenever you can, yes, but be who you are. And when you get there, let everyone else get there too. Don’t yuck someone else’s yum. If it’s not your jam, okay, but allow others to celebrate theirs. There’s a reason jam comes in so many flavours!
Leave a Reply