The Books That Made Me Dream of Being an Author (And Why It Took Until My 40s to Do It)

If you grew up in Australia in the 1980s and 90s, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

Before screens. Before streaming. Before the internet stole our Saturday afternoons. There were books.

For me, books weren't just something I read, they were somewhere I lived. And looking back now, as an author myself (still pinching myself that I can say that), I can trace a direct line from the dog-eared paperbacks of my childhood to the world of Lilly Pilly Creek.

Here are the books that did it to me.

The Magic Faraway Tree — Enid Blyton

It started here, as it did for so many Australian kids. Enid Blyton had a gift for creating worlds that felt just out of reach but somehow completely real — a magical tree in an enchanted forest, with a different land at the top every time you climbed it. As a little girl, I was absolutely convinced that if I found the right tree and climbed high enough, I'd find my own magical world waiting for me. Spoiler: I eventually did. I just had to write it myself.

Pigs Might Fly — Emily Rodda

Emily Rodda is an Australian treasure, and Pigs Might Fly was one of those books that made me realise Australian authors could write magical, whimsical, extraordinary stories. We didn't have to look to England or America for our magic. It was right here. That felt important to a kid growing up in Adelaide, even if I couldn't have articulated why at the time.

The Saddle Club — Bonnie Bryant

If you know, you know. The Saddle Club was my first experience of being completely obsessed with a series, the kind where you finish one book and immediately need the next one. Plus I was one of those horse crazy kids and these books only made it worse (I did eventually get a pony too!). But that feeling of living inside a world with characters who felt like your best friends? That's exactly what I want readers to feel when they pick up a Lilly Pilly Creek book.

The Baby-Sitters Club — Ann M. Martin

Speaking of series obsessions, The Baby-Sitters Club taught me that a community of characters, each with their own personality and quirks, is more compelling than any single hero. I loved every single girl in that club differently. I think about that a lot when I'm writing the residents of Lilly Pilly Creek.

Anne of Green Gables — L.M. Montgomery

Anne Shirley is, quite simply, one of the greatest characters ever written. Imaginative, dramatic, deeply feeling, fiercely herself, and set in a small, tight-knit community where everyone knows everyone and the landscape is almost a character in itself. If you've read the Lilly Pilly Creek series and thought "this feels a little bit Anne-ish"... that's not an accident. Anne of Green Gables quietly shaped everything.

Tomorrow, When the War Began — John Marsden

My absolute favourite. My number one. John Marsden did something I didn't know was possible, he wrote a story set in the Australian bush, with Australian teenagers, in a landscape I recognised, and made it feel as epic and urgent and important as anything I'd ever read. He proved to me that Australian stories matter. That our landscape, our voices, our way of seeing the world, it's worth writing about. Worth reading about. I think about that every time I sit down to write about the Adelaide Hills.

So what happened?

I carried these books with me for decades. Through school, through work, through life. The dream of writing my own stories never quite went away — it just got quietly filed under "someday."

And then someday arrived. In my 40s, I finally sat down and wrote the book I'd always wanted to read. A cosy mystery set in a small Australian community, full of warmth and charm and just a little bit of the supernatural. A place where the landscape matters, the characters feel like old friends, and every book leaves you wanting the next one.

The Ghost of Lilly Pilly Creek was born, and those childhood books were with me every step of the way.

If you've ever had a dream you've been quietly carrying around for years... it's not too late. It really isn't.

With love,
Abbie x

P.S. If you haven't started the Lilly Pilly Creek Ghost Mysteries series yet, you can find it here →