By CAITLIN CROWLEY
FROM the pub feeds after footy training to hotly contested barefoot sprints at the end of a country race meet, Darling Downs readers will feel right at home within the pages of Clare Fletcher’s latest novel, Love Match.
But the freshly crowned “queen of the Aussie country town romance” maintains, the small town setting of ‘South Star’ and its colourful characters are strictly fiction.
Born and raised in St George, Fletcher will be sharing the rich Darling Downs’ history and inspiration behind Love Match at its Toowoomba launch this week.
After the success of her debut novel, Five Bush Weddings last year, Fletcher told the Caller she had received lovely feedback from readers and was proud to have two books on the shelf.
“These stories are really set in areas inspired by the places where I grew up and I’m from St. George – because I haven’t lived there for a while I was a little bit nervous and I really hoped that it would feel true, for people in particularly regional Queensland but all kinds of regional areas,” Fletcher said.
“So when I heard from readers that it did feel like it reflected their own experience that was probably the best thing of all.”
While Fletcher acknowledged there were several authors contributing to Australia’s rural romance genre right now, she said she liked to think her comedy elements set her work apart.
“Especially with Love Match, the love story is actually between women and it’s got some queer romance in it and I think that’s not really something that we’ve seen in a mainstream regional romance in Australia before,” she said.
“It was a bit of a journey for me personally, writing the book.
“There’s a lot in there about mental health and internalised homophobia.
“It’s a romantic comedy, but it’s got some darker stuff going on and certainly when I wrote the first draft, it was not very funny at all, I had to rework it quite a bit.”
Fletcher said she worked with a sensitivity reader to ensure her story was inclusive and respectful, as she didn’t have lived experience of queer relationships.
“The other fun aspect of the historical plot line all about the 60s and I definitely did a bit of crowd-sourced research when I was in St. George last year for the launch (of Five Bush Weddings).
“I got to do a chat to the local CWA which was really sweet and I was asking them for all their memories of deb balls and the country dances on Saturday nights, so that was really helpful. So I might be able to do a bit more research this time around too.”
Fletcher’s extensive research for Love Match also included a visit to the Old Tote building at Eagle Farm racecourse, where she toured the museum with Maureen Collier (pictured above).
Maureen was a fixture at the track as trainer in the same era as one of Fletcher’s characters, Mabel Peters.
Mabel’s fabulous collection of vintage frocks, which was catalogued throughout Love Match, were also inspired by the real wardrobe of Darling Downs woman Dulcie Mason (pictured below)
“With money scraped together from selling eggs from her farm, she would buy fabric and describe her design ideas to her dressmaker friend Thelma Beutel,” Fletcher said.
“When Dulcie passed away in 2017 she left behind a collection of 70 dresses, spanning the 1940s to the 1990s. Stumbling upon Dulcie and Thelma’s partnership felt like a sign I was on the right track with Mabel’s story.”
As Love Match has been on book store shelves for a few months now, Fletcher said she was a little nervous and interested to see how local readers felt about it.
“Getting back to Toowoomba and St George as well was really important to me and I’m so glad I could fit it in before Christmas,” she said.
“People always want to attribute characters to real people or pick out things that are real and I’ve certainly been inspired occasionally by memories of things that have happened but South Star is one hundred percent fictional.”
Clare Fletcher will be at Harry and Kit in Toowoomba for the local launch of Love Match Wednesday December 13, you can register for the free event here.