When I was in Sydney last week, I caught up with the wonderful Cheryl Orsini, my co-creator on The Fishmonger and the Pastry Chef–she created the glorious visual world of the book. Cheryl brought along her original artwork for the book, and explained how she creates scenes in layers–it was absolutely fascinating and so stunning! I took heaps of photos–have a look at these.
It’s been a lovely publication week for In the Paris Fashion, with bookshop signings and celebrations, and some great first reviews of the book, in the latest issue of the Australian Women’s Weekly and the latest issue of Who magazine. It’s off to a fantastic start!
It’s publication day for In The Paris Fashion, my third adult novel under the name of Sophie Beaumont, and I couldn’t be more excited! So many lovely readers enjoyed the previous novels, A Secret Garden in Paris (2024) and The Paris Cooking School (2023) and I hope very much you’ll love this one too!
This novel, which tells a very contemporary story but reaches back into the past and the extraordinarily creative years of the fashion world in the between-wars years in Paris, is very close to my heart as it was partly inspired by a precious family legacy in the form of the experiences of my beautiful paternal grandmother Marie-Louise during her unconventional provincial childhood and amazing time in Paris as a young fashion illustrator and aspiring artist in the Paris of the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. Her handwritten notebook from the 1970’s, telling those stories, was transcribed by one of my sisters recently and proved very inspirational. Other inspirations come in the form of the fascinating world of ‘brocante’ or vintage/antique trading; the history of the silk trade in France, and of course the extraordinary place of Paris in the world of haute couture.
In my many visits to Paris over the years, including this year, I have visited the locations in the novel, such as the Avenue de Montaigne with its rows of designer showrooms; the fabric district in Montmartre, with its fascinating stores; and the famous art school, l’Académie de la Grande Chaumière. I’ll be profiling these and many other locations in the novel on a special page on this blog–watch this space!
I’d like to acknowledge the many people who have made this book such a gorgeous reality: my agent, Margaret Connolly; my publisher, Brigid Mullane and all the fantastic Ultimo Press team, for making this book the very best it could be, both editorially and in design and production; and to Cheryl Orsini for the gorgeous cover illustration and map. Special thanks to my sisters: Gabrielle, who walked many of the Paris settings with me; Camille and Beatrice, whose inside knowledge of the brocante scene helped flesh out Isabelle’s background; and Dominique, whose work on transcribing our grandmother’s handwritten notebook was of such help in evoking the atmosphere of late 1920’s Paris. Many thanks also to my niece Emilie-Marie, for showing me in real life what work at a couture school consists of. And to all my beautiful family in Australia, France and the UK, I am so very grateful for your loving support and encouragement, as always.
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!
Absolutely delighted to reveal the totally gorgeous cover of my forthcoming Sophie Beaumont novel, In The Paris Fashion! The beautiful illustrations on the cover are by the wonderful Cheryl Orsini, while the elegant cover design is by Christabella Designs. The book, published by Ultimo Press, will be out on October 28. Can’t wait!
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!
Last week, I did a wonderful tour of Sydney bookshops with Lorena Carrington, fabulous illustrator and co-creator of our picture book The Giant. On foot, by train and by bus, we went to several of Sydney’s best bookshops, including, in the CBD, Abbeys, Kinokuniya, and Dymocks George St, plus Harry Hartog in Bondi Junction, Gleebooks in Glebe and Berkelouw in Leichhardt. Everywhere we received a warm welcome, and the culmination was a wonderful event for the book at the fabulous bookshop Better Read than Dead in Newtown, where the fantastic author Ursula Dubosarsky launched it into the world, our lovely publisher Anna Solding of MidnightSun Publishing attended, coming all the way from Adelaide, and a warm supportive crowd came to share the celebration with us! It was all so much fun and we are so grateful for all the warm support of booksellers, readers, and fellow creators for our gentle Giant!
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!
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 
The full shortlist for the Awards has just been publicly announced by the State Library of NSW, and you can find all the details here: https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/news/shortlists-announced-2025-nsw-history-awards
Photos courtesy of the State Library of NSW.
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!
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?
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.
And if you’re in Sydney, we’re having a celebration/launch for The Giant, at the fabulous Better Read than Dead Bookshop in Newton, on September 4 at 6pm. The book will be launched by the wonderful Ursula Dubosarsky and Lorena and I will both be there, to chat and sign books! Here’s the link to book: https://www.betterreadevents.com/events/the-giant-launch-sophie-masson-and-lorena-carrington-with-ursula-dubosarsky
Feathers of the Firebird 