Fiona McIntosh tells us why ‘The Orphans’ is set in Australia

An all-Australian story was something I’d avoided my entire writing career. I’ve felt blessed to become an Australian but for 40 years, I’ve still felt my English roots have never been torn up. I must be the only Aussie who detests the arrival of summer…I am a creature of overcast skies, cold, the colour green and pebble beaches. I lust for English supermarkets and English chocolate. I like the normality of places with names like Boggy Bottom or Tiddlywink. However, when we’re on that aeroplane turned towards Australia, few would be happier than me. I love this country but I have not written about it because I feel that people born here understand sun-scorched earth and long summers so much better than I might.

Suddenly there was Covid and I no longer had a choice. Some said, just make up a story, but that flies in the face of everything I’ve built my career upon, which is researching the worlds of my books, whether it’s a tea garden in Darjeeling, a perfume house in Grasse, a WWI trench in Gallipoli, a famous art gallery in Paris, a cobbled lane in Prague…or a cathedral close in England. I go to lengths to ensure I walk in the footsteps of my characters and I will often visit my locations two or three times to get it right.

Corralled, I had to turn and look at my own backyard and having just written The Champagne War in Epernay, I couldn’t even work with the most obvious landscape of vineyards. I had to look further afield and it was deeply troubling as I had no immediate inspiration.

Fate stepped in twice.

Around this time, I was grieving the loss of my dad. He was racing towards ninety-four with a sparkle in his eye and a smile that lit a room so it was a shock for all of us – especially his only daughter – that he didn’t live forever. It troubled me that I didn’t know what happened in between his passing and that final goodbye. A very kind funeral home offered to let me behind closed doors and given the owner was a fourth-generation undertaker and mortician I couldn’t resist. I began to learn the history of undertaking and when I discovered that women were unwelcome in this enterprise, I decided that I would write about a woman pushing back against society and banging down the doors of an all-male – almost secret – industry. And my mentor loved this because his mother had grown up as an undertaker’s daughter and so we loosely (very) based the story around her.

Fate’s second involvement was that around the same time my husband was researching his forbears who came from Scotland on a ship and ended up in the far north of the state. One son was a drover of cattle from Queensland into South Australia and finally he became the supervisor of the livestock on the vast sheep station known as Witchelina in the state’s far, far north beyond the majestic Flinders Ranges. Its closest town is the fabulous outback railway stop known as Farina that became a thriving town and home to colourful characters including the Afghan cameleers who would travel for days in a train of slow-moving creatures to deliver water, amongst other important goods, far and wide.

I learned about Ian’s father who grew up on that isolated sheep station and a character began to build about a wool classer who is forced to leave behind the shearing shed and come into the city.

I just knew if I could bring together my mortician, Fleur, and my wool classer, Tom, that something extraordinary might happen.

And so began The Orphans…

The Orphans by Fiona McIntosh (Penguin Australia) comes out on the 5th of October. Order a signed copy today while stocks last.

The Orphans

by Fiona McIntosh

The highly anticipated new historical adventure by the bestselling author of The Spy's Wife.

Orphan Fleur Appleby is adopted by a loving undertaker and his wife and she quickly develops a special gift for helping bereaved families. Her ambition to be the first female mortician in the country is fuelled by her plan to bring more women into the male dominated funeral industry.

Raised in the outback of South Australia's Flinders Ranges, Tom Catchlove is faced with a life-changing tragedy as a young boy. He works hard but dreams big, striving for a future as a wool classer.

A chance encounter between the two children will change the course of their lives.

By adulthood Fleur finds herself fighting for the survival of the family's business, while her widowed father drinks away generations of prosperity and a new, conniving stepmother wants Fleur gone. When Tom emerges from the isolation of the desert to find new work at the port woolstores, his path crosses with Fleur's again - only to be caught up in a murder investigation, in which they can only trust each other.

At once tragic and triumphant, The Orphans is an unforgettable story about a unique bond between two children that will echo down the years, and teach them both about the real meaning of life, of loss, and of love.

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