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!
Lovely news–Bold Ben Hall has been longlisted for the 2025 ARA Historical Novel Prize, in the children’s and young adult category! And it is in such excellent company, too!
Yoohoo! It’s the publication day today of Bold Ben Hall, my middle-grade novel about the famous/infamous bushranger, as seen through the eyes of Lily Jordan and Sam Turner, two (fictional) young people of his time. Published by Walker Books Australia as the launch title in their new Our History series, it was an absolutely engrossing novel to write, and I hope readers will find it similarly engrossing!
In this novel, I wanted to present Ben Hall’s story in a way which reflects the very different perspectives through which people of the time saw him and his arch-enemy Sir Frederick Pottinger. But it also invites you, the reader today, to make up your own mind, like Lily and Sam try to—who’s the hero, who’s the villain, or do they each have a bit of both?
My main characters Lily, Sam and their families and friends are fictional, but several of the people who appear in this novel are real historical figures, and I have based their descriptions and doings on documents and sources of the time. These historical figures include not only Hall and Pottinger, of course, but also the members of Hall’s gang, Mickey Burke and the three Johnnies—Gilbert, Vane and O’Meally—as well as the landlords of the Canowindra Hotel, Billy and Rose Robinson, and French-born Forbes businessmen Auguste Nicolas and Joseph-Bernard Reymond. As well as doing a lot of research in books and online, I visited Canowindra, Carcoar, Eugowra and Escort Rock (where Frank Gardiner and his gang pulled off the famous gold raid) Bathurst, Forbes (including Ben Hall’s grave) and the surrounding countryside to get a feel for ‘Ben Hall country’, which proved to be both interesting and inspirational. I particularly want to acknowledge the kind help and useful information I received from staff at the Forbes Library and Forbes Visitor Centre, as well as the archivists of the Forbes Family History Group, which helped me to build an even fuller picture of Ben Hall and his times. Later, a visit to the fascinating Cobb and Co Museum in Toowoomba, Queensland, greatly helped in fleshing out the coaching background.
I was delighted this week to get my author copies of my new middle-grade novel, Bold Ben Hall, which comes out with Walker Books on March 1. Doesn’t it look fabulous! Can’t wait till it’s out in the hands of readers…
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.
Here’s the second part of my interview with the wonderful Brenton–this one looks at the course of writing careers, at publishing, at rewriting etc. It really has been one of the most enjoyable interviews I’ve ever had!
I had a fantastic wide-ranging conversation over Zoom yesterday, with the wonderful writer, blogger and interviewer Brenton Cullen, about all kinds of things to do with my writing, books and career, and it’s now up on Brenton’s You Tube channel. It was such an invigorating and enjoyable experience!
My latest book for young readers, the chapterbook Sabina and the Cats of Rome, illustrated by Laura Wood, is being published today by Christmas Press. It was such a fun book to write, with the seeds of it first planted by seeing a whole bunch of cats communing in central Rome, at the spot where Julius Caesar was assassinated, no less! And that seed lay dormant for a few years before turning into the adventure of a little girl in Ancient Rome, a haughty little cat, a couple of confused dogs, and a dastardly plot by the King of the Rats!
Read a great review of Sabina and the Cats of Rome here.
Check out this fun little trailer for Sabina and the Cats of Rome!
The illustrations in the trailer are from the book, and created by the fabulous Laura Wood, but the photos are ones I took myself in Rome some years ago–including the photos of some Roman cats that were hanging around at the spot where Julius Caesar was assassinated (there was a wreath at the spot marking where it was). It was seeing those cats that first planted the seed of this story…
The first advance review of Sabina and the Cats of Rome has just appeared, and it’s absolutely lovely! The review is by Brenton Cullen and has appeared in Books+Publishing this week. Here’s a short extract (full review is for B+P subscribers only):
Masson’s storytelling is engaging and accessible, offering simplicity for independent reading while maintaining a rich plot. Laura Wood’s black and white illustrations bring Sabina and Cleo to life, depicting seven scenes from the story...
It’s a great start for this fun little chapterbook, which is coming out with Christmas Press in October.
Feathers of the Firebird 