An absolutely delicious, gorgeous parcel arrived for me yesterday: advance copies of The Fishmonger and the Pastry chef, my forthcoming picture book with the wonderful Cheryl Orsini, which is coming out with Little Hare (Hardie Grant Kids) in late November. I am so very happy with it, it is so very very beautiful! Elements of the story are freely inspired my family history in the beautiful seaside town of Biarritz, but it’s also very much its own thing, and the glorious visual world Cheryl has created is the most perfect place for my words to live in.
It’s also the most gorgeous production, as a physical object, with a textured cover, beautiful satin internal paper that really showcases the illustrations, and great design. Thank you so much to our lovely publisher Chren Byng, editor Johanna Gogos, and all the Hardie Grant Kids team for helping to make this book the most perfect it could be!
So last Friday night, this totally astonishing, absolutely wonderful thing happened: in a lovely ceremony at the State Library, Bold Ben Hall was announced as the winner of the Young People’s History Prize in the 2025 NSW History Awards!
I feel so delighted, honoured, grateful and absolutely amazed…still pinching myself!
Thank you so much to the wonderful judges, to the State Library, to my fantastic publisher Walker Books Australia, my lovely agent Margaret Connolly, and my darling family and friends who came to celebrate this exciting evening with me!
Big news: I am absolutely thrilled to announce that my historical novel for middle-grade readers, Bold Ben Hall (Walker Books), has been shortlisted for the 2025 NSW History Awards, in the Young People’s Category.
Such exciting news and such lovely and delightfully unexpected recognition for this novel which I so much enjoyed writing and researching!
Thank you so much to the judges and the State Library, and congratulations to all fellow shortlistees!
Many thanks also to my wonderful agent, Margaret Connolly, and to the fabulous team at Walker Books! And special thanks to Clare Hallifax, former publisher at Walker Books, who never forgot a conversation we had about Ben Hall years ago
Today, August 1, is the official publication day for The Giant, my new picture book with the wonderful illustrator, Lorena Carrington, and we are so thrilled! Published by MidnightSun Publishing, The Giant is a fable about, yes, a giant! He wakes from a long sleep and happily walks down the mountain to find his old friends in the town–but alas, so much time has passed since he went to sleep that nobody remembers him and everyone runs away in fear–everyone, that is, except for–well, read the book to find out!
The Giant is my second picture-book collaboration with Lorena, after Satin (MidnightSun Publishing, 2023), which was awarded a Notable Books citation in the 2024 Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Awards. And as with Satin, creating The Giant was an absolute blast of a book to create together with our lovely publisher Anna Solding and her team at MidnightSun Publishing.
To celebrate the book’s publication, Lorena and I have written a bit about how it all came about. Hope you enjoy reading about it–and enjoy reading the book, too!
From Sophie:
The idea for the story of The Giant came into my head one day when I was walking up the road on a sunny but cold winter morning. He just arrived without warning; one minute I was strolling along, just enjoying the walk, the next minute I had stopped abruptly, seeing him so clearly, waking up, yawning and stretching after sleeping in his cave for a very, very long time.
As a child, I had read old stories where great heroes slept for centuries in caves but might wake up one day if they were needed to fight battles. But I knew my giant wasn’t about fighting battles, he was about finding his friends. And I could imagine his excitement as he went out into the sunshine, filled with joy as he thought he could see his friends again. And then his sadness as he realised nobody remembered him…I hurried home then so I could write his story down and find out what happened next to this gentle giant whose tears could make a river rise.
It was wonderful to write it and even more wonderful and thrilling to see the Giant and his world come to life in Lorena’s magical illustrations!
on left, part of the original first draft in my notebook, on right the finished draft on the computer
From Lorena:
I loved Sophie’s gentle giant from the first time I read her story, and I could picture him immediately in my mind. He is made up completely from elements of nature: moss, stick, leaves, little bits and pieces you might find out walking, so I like think of him as being real part of the landscape that he’s in. In fact, most of the illustrations in this book are made with photographs of nature montaged together, along with paper collage, and a little bit of drawing.
I also knew right from the start that I wanted the illustrations to be full of colour. Set over a full day, from sunrise to after dark, the colours change according to the time of day. If you look closely you can see I’ve used photographs of different landscapes to make up landscapes in the giant’s world, and also added some cut paper, little bits of drawings, and added little interesting things here and there. Look out for the drawing of the giant in the book, and see if the scene repeats itself in a different way later in the book. Can you find versions of the birds and the butterfly from the page borders too?
pages showing the changing of the light over the course of the book…contrasts: the Giant ‘in an old book’ and ‘in real life’...
The Giant, by Sophie Masson and Lorena Carrington, published by MidnightSun Publishing, August 1, 2025. ISBN 9781922858658. Available in all good bookshops around Australia! You can read a few fabulous early reviews here, here and here.
I am absolutely thrilled to reveal the gorgeous cover of my upcoming picture book with the fantastic Cheryl Orsini, The Fishmonger and the Pastry Chef. This lovely picture book, set in ‘a beautiful seaside town full of beautiful places’, around a young boy called Lucas and two of his favourite people, his aunt Violette, a pastry chef, and his friend Cyprien, a fishmonger, is partly inspired by aspects of my family history in the beautiful seaside town of Biarritz…
It was such a joy to write this story and such a delight to see its visual world come to such charming, lively, delicious and endearing life in Cheryl’s gorgeous illustrations, and I can’t wait to see it come out into the world!
The Fishmonger and the Pastry Chef will be published by Hardie Grant Kids in their Little Hare imprint in November.
I’ve just come back from a month overseas –in France, including Paris, the Pays Basque and Toulouse; in Vienna; and in Spain (in the Spanish Basque country). During that time, I did quite a bit of research for future books and collected photos for my forthcoming novel, In The Paris Fashion, too. As a teaser, here’s a few photos relating to settings, scenes or elements of In The Paris Fashion…
So excited to be sharing this announcement! My new adult novel, In The Paris Fashion, (written under the name of Sophie Beaumont), will be published by Ultimo Press in November!
Here’s the publisher’s announcement:
Ultimo Press are thrilled to be publishing In the Paris Fashion by Sophie Masson!
It’s a mystery that has passed into fashion legend: the perfect evening gown that was to be created by couture star Elisabeth Fontaine before her tragic death in 1930. Its design, a closely guarded secret, has never been found …
Just like Sophie’s previous novels, (The Paris Cooking School and A Secret Garden in Paris) In the Paris Fashion is utterly compelling, intriguing and romantic and this time it’s set against a background of timeless French fashion. J’adore!
Sophie says: ‘I wanted to tell a great story against the fascinating background of fashion, both contemporary and vintage, and to plunge the reader into a world of intrigue set around the enduring appeal of a legendary lost dress and what it means.’
Publisher, Brigid Mullane, says: ‘Say bonjour to your next escape: In the Paris Fashion is a heartwarming story of friendship, romance and stunning Parisian style – perfect for anyone who’s ever longed for a rendezvous in the City of Light.’
In the Paris Fashion will be published in November 2025
This is a very special novel whose inspiration is very close to my heart (and my family history). More on that soon, but right now, it’s celebration time!
There’s going to be a lot of events coming up in March for me!
March 1: Paperback edition of Satin is released by MidnightSun Publishing.
March 5: Publication day of Bold Ben Hall (Walker Books)
March 8: Signing morning for Bold Ben Hall at Collins Booksellers, Armidale.
March 12: Talk at the State Library of NSW for The Society of Women Writers NSW–my talk, which is part of festivities around the 100th anniversary of the Society, will be around my French and Australian inspirations.
March 13: Two events at Goulburn Library: a morning Storytime event for kids, focussed around Satin and Cockadoodledoo; and an evening talk and Q and A for adults, centred on A Secret Garden in Paris.
I am thrilled to announce that my middle-grade historical novel, Bold Ben Hall, will be published by Walker Books Australia in March 2025. It’s an action-packed story set in the Central West of NSW, in the days of the bushranger Ben Hall and I just loved writing it!
It will be the launch title for Walker’s new Our History series. Just look at the gorgeous cover!
Here’s something about the story:
It is October 1863 and the theatre company twelve-year old Lily Jordan’s parents are part of is on its way to Forbes for a run of Macbeth. But Lily’s French-born mother Adelaide has fallen ill and the family have had to stop in Canowindra–just as famous bushranger Ben Hall and his gang arrive. The gang hold everyone in town hostage– but instead of robbing people, they hold a strange, giant three day party, and Lily is enthralled. She writes a secret play ‘Bold Ben Hall’ and dreams of sending it to a famous theatre company in Sydney or Melbourne… Meanwhile, in Forbes, fourteen year old stable boy Sam Turner greatly admires Sir Frederick Pottinger, Ben Hall’s nemesis. And he dreams of helping Sir Fred to catch Ben Hall… When Lily and Sam meet, the two are soon at loggerheads about their heroes, determined to prove the other wrong…and to try any means to do so!
Closer to the publication date, I’ll post about the background research I did for the book–part of which took me to the fascinating historical towns of Canowindra, Forbes, Eugowra, Carcoar, Bathurst and the beautiful Central Western countryside, in an absolutely fantastic trip.
Exciting! The Paris Cooking School will be coming out in Germany next year, in May, published by Droemer Knaur . It’s got a new title–Zweite Chancen à la Carte (Second Chances à la Carte), with the subheading of Die kleine Kochschule in Paris (The little cooking school in Paris) and a new cover. And here that cover is, looking gorgeous!
Feathers of the Firebird 