Former Tantanoola resident Maya Linnell is heading briefly home in the coming weeks to promote her new book with open events at the public libraries at Millicent, Penola and Mount Gambier.

The Millicent High School graduate and rural fiction author gathers inspiration from her rural upbringing and the small communities she has always lived in and loved. Magpie’s Bend is her third novel, following Bottlebrush Creek and Wildflower Ridge which both received best-selling status and achieved critical acclaim.

A former journalist in the Limestone Coast and Western Victoria, Ms Linnell also blogs for Romance Writers Australia, loves baking up a storm, tending to her rambling garden and raising three little bookworms.

“I put a little country newspaper and a jack of all trades country journo into the storyline of Magpie’s Bend, using a little inspiration from my past days,” Ms Linnell told The SE Voice.

Ms Linnell writes to a soundtrack of magpies, sheep and chickens on a small property near Portland, where she lives with her family, their menagerie of farm animals and the odd tiger snake or two.

With Bottlebrush Creek and Wildflower Ridge, she perfectly captured what it means to live in regional Australia and the community spirit that goes along with it. The plot of Magpie’s Bend focusses on bush nurse Lara McIntyre and journalist Toby Paxton are thrust into the limelight when an accident puts the beating heart of their community in jeopardy.