Well known author Maya Linnell visited Narrandera Library last week and called in to Mon Repos store to visit the owners Scott and Rebecca Rowlings.

The reason she visited Rebecca and her husband Scott was because of Rebecca’s review of Paperbark Hill for Australian Rural and Regional News – Rebecca is a book reviewer for the online news site.

“It really made my day and it was lovely to meet Rebecca and her husband Scott and see their unique store Mon Repos Narrandera, which now has a signed copy of Paperbark Hill!” Maya said.

Maya is a bestselling author, proud mother, lifelong bookworm, sewer, recovering owner/builder, DIY junkie and animal hoarder but when she has free time she is off adventuring with her family.

She grew up in a small country town, climbing towering gum trees and reading her way through her family’s bookshelves before discovering a never-ending supply of novels at the local library.

She found her feet in journalism, working at a rural newspaper before segueing into public relations and now fiction writing and blogging for Romance Writers Australia.

Her first novel, Wildflower Ridge, was published in 2019. Bottlebrush Creek is her second novel.

Maya currently lives in rural Victoria with her husband and three children.

She writes from her home in south west Victoria.

For the past five years, she has lived and breathed her fictional family’s every move, from her debut novel, Wildflower Ridge, to her latest offering on their lives, Paperbark Hill.

The series, which also includes Bottlebrush Creek and Magpie’s Bend, is loosely set in Victoria’s Western Disrict, where Maya’s husband Jason grew up.

Maya Linnell also grew up not that far away, just over the South Australian border at Tantanoola on the Limestone Coast, which is where she did her journalism cadetship on the South Eastern Times and where she met Jason, an aircraft engineer.

They eloped to Tasmania and came home to roost in Victoria, where they built brick by hand-made brick their cathedral-style home on eight acres (3.2 hectares) of farmland, which they share with a menagerie of animals and their three children.

Maya has also become the convenor of a national network of library lovers, hosting a free and interactive online event on the third Wednesday of each month.

Her show – aptly named Library Lovers with Maya Linnell – is being rolled out to libraries across Australia. 

This article appeared in the Narrandera Argus, 20 April 2023.
ARR.News Editor: This article contains minor changes from the printed article.