SURF Coast local Chrissie Mios, writing as Chrissie Bellbrae, has made her debut as a novelist, releasing her first book last month.<\/p>\n
The Florentine Quilt is inspired by the Arthurian legend of Tristan and Isolde, surrounding the lives of three women connected to a medieval quilt and the ancient tale of forbidden love.<\/p>\n
Also partly inspired by the author’s family story, the multi-timeline narrative is set in Cornwell, Florence and Melbourne.<\/p>\n
Ms Bellbrae said writing the book and getting everything together has taken her a long time, and after COVID and a major health scare she decided life was too short, and made her debut as an author on January 22: her 63rd birthday.<\/p>\n
“It’s been a bit of a journey. I have been seriously writing for the last 10 years and been through the whole rejection and almost getting there.<\/p>\n
“There’s been quite a few hurdles and last year I just got to the point where I thought I’m not getting any younger and I don’t know how much time I’ve got; you tend to go down that sort of path when you’re hit with a life crisis.”<\/p>\n
The author has been interested in writing since a young age, and once her children were old enough, she got back into the craft, doing some short courses and connecting with other writers.<\/p>\n
Ms Bellbrae enjoyed the research side of her book, basing one of her characters off a real person who was rumoured to have an affair with Edward VII.<\/p>\n
This storyline led to a series of “what if” questions and the story started to develop from there and her writing started to flow.<\/p>\n
“Everything seemed to come together and it sounds like a bit of a clich\u00e9, but just like a patchwork quilt, all the pieces were falling into place.<\/p>\n
“Even the character Florence, who I had to do the research on, we were travelling overseas to Italy and I just had connections with people that knew of her and knew her story and they just appeared on the path.<\/p>\n
“There was a lot of that with this story, which is lovely, and that’s when you get into a sweet spot writing.”<\/p>\n
Ms Bellbrae said she would definitely write a second story, although maybe not another one about a quilt.<\/p>\n
The Florentine Quilt is available now from Torquay Books, Bookgrove in Ocean Grove, and online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SURF Coast local Chrissie Mios, writing as Chrissie Bellbrae, has made her debut as a novelist, releasing her first book last month. The Florentine Quilt is inspired by the Arthurian legend of Tristan and Isolde, surrounding the lives of three women connected to a medieval quilt and the ancient tale of forbidden love. Also partly […]<\/p>\n