Australians and overseas tourists love Broome where much of my novel ‘Broome Enigma’ is set. A tropical, cosmopolitan town in the Australian Outback, its isolation and colorful red cliffs, white sands and turquoise ocean evoke a primeval response in visitors.
Once seen, the reds of Gantheaume Point and the vast white sands and turquoise sea of Cable beach will stay in the mind.
When writing of Broome and of travel between Broome and Perth, I drew on personal memories of the area. My travel book ‘Exploring Outback Australia’, with photos and maps by my husband, Hartley Tobin, provided further prompts.
A goodlooking tanned young man we saw working in an Outback caravan park inspired the creation of ‘Broome Enigma’s’ hero Joe and the story. Dressed only in jeans and sandals and shifting around sprinklers, he looked as if he had just stepped off a film set about surfers. However, his personality did not match this image. He did not smile and had a ‘dampened down’ personality. Wondering how someone like him came to be working in a caravan park, I played the ‘What If…?’ game. In time answers formed and I came up with a hero whose past life was shrouded in mystery. This eventually led to a back story. He and the heroine Jodie set out to uncover the secrets of his past.
Early on, the title popped into my head. It fitted because the novel was set in Broome and the hero, a complex person, was a mystery, as were various layers of the story, such as the underbelly in Broome society I constructed.
I wanted ‘Broome Enigma’ to be a good read, in which readers shared the emotional rollercoaster experienced by the two main characters, especially the heroine as the book is through her point of view. As reader Jill Sutton, wrote, “I very much enjoyed joining all the characters in their exciting adventures.”
Even better if the book made readers feel good about themselves and about the world and maybe learned something they didn’t know before. As reader, Kathy McKean wrote, “I felt sad to finish the novel. I felt like I had lost some new friends that I had made and whose company I enjoyed.”
By spending time with pleasant people who have faced up to and overcome serious challenges, hopefully readers will also have insights into their own challenges, especially in their search for a special person with whom to share their life.
Many people have now read my book and many comment on the setting, Broome in 1986, when life was slower and mobile phones were not in use. (This was important to the unfolding of the story.) Those who have visited the area said it brings back memories, while others who haven’t been said they were inspired to visit.
On a working holiday in Australia’s cosmopolitan Outback town of Broome in 1986, Jodie, a young book designer and artist is open to romance and adventure.
At the holiday village where she is staying, she meets Joe, a young man who works there. Despite the strong attraction between them, the many unknowns about his earlier life keep them apart. To try to uncover his mysterious past, they travel to Perth and back to Broome and are drawn into not only bizarre but also dangerous situations.
Is Joe the person she thinks he is, or is he some alter ego? Can Jodie and Joe stop their relationship from developing until they have answers and know if he is free to love her?
Excerpt:
A big gust of wind rocked the van and flung Jodie hard against Joe. He pushed her off.
“Joe, it’s me, Jodie! Wake up, wake up!”
“Jodie, is that you?” He threw his arms around her and buried his head in her chest.
She brushed his hair back from his sweating face. “Take it easy, Joe. Take deep breaths. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
He stopped shaking and pulled back from her. “What’s happening?”
“It’s the cyclone. Don’t you remember?”
Another huge gust shook the van and sent Jodie sprawling on Joe’s bunk and into the wall. “Ow, that hurt!” She picked herself up and rubbed her head.
The van rocked violently again. Joe and Jodie grabbed for handholds.
“Quick, come into my bed with me, Joe. It will be safer there.” Tripping and feeling their way along the wall, the two made their way to the double bed and clambered in.
Her breathing coming in short spasms, she lay on her back and took deep breaths. The storm whined and screeched about her, and the roof creaked and scraped.
“Oh, my god, the roof’s going to take off any minute!”
Joe’s arms enveloped her. “Hush, everything will be all right. But will you be okay if we have to make a run for it?”
“Yes.” She let out a sob. “But I like our chances better in here than out there.”
Joe kissed her forehead. He pulled her closer and they lay locked against each other while the storm raged around them.
Social media links:
https://www.facebook.com/meryl.tobin.18
https://sites.google.com/view/merylbrowntobin-author
Buy links: ‘Broome Enigma’ is for sale in book stores and on over 40 websites in at least 16 countries including Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain, The Netherlands, Switzerland, UK and USA.
Websites include https://www.amazon.com.au/Broome-Enigma-Meryl-Brown-Tobin/dp/1509250638
Broome Enigma by Meryl Brown Tobin | Goodreads.
Bio
A former secondary teacher, Australian writer Meryl Brown Tobin has published 22 books, including a novel, travel book, educational puzzle books and poetry books, and hundreds of poems, puzzles, short stories, articles, cartoons and comic strips. A guest on Ch7’s children’s TV program The Book Place, she and a presenter read her children’s picture storybook LEFTY.
Apart from family and home, her interests include travel, bushwalking, conservation, current affairs and social justice issues. The Tasmanian Tiger fascinates her, and she’d love to prove it is not extinct.
Alana Lorens, author 