There’s dedication by authors to authenticity in their writing – and then there’s Fiona McIntosh.
For her new book, The Perfumer’s Secret, the best-selling novelist, who lives in Adelaide, Australia, wanted to really understand the world of early-20th century perfume-making that her newest protagonist inhabits. So last year she went to Grasse, in the south of France. It is famous for its violets and is the location of a field that still provides all of the jasmine used in the production of the Chanel N° 5 fragrance.
But rather than simply hit the tourist trail and see the sights, smells and atmosphere of this beautiful Provençal town, McIntosh delved much deeper.
“I quickly understood that if this girl in my novel, Fleurette, was going to be a perfumer, I had to know what her job entailed,” she says. “So I went to a perfume workshop in Grasse and ended up, a year later, flying back to France from Australia to make a perfume at [perfume house] Galimard. I really needed to know how the scent Fleurette designs in the story would smell.
“Extraordinarily, Galimard are now going to sell it – which completely does my head in – so I’ve bought 1,000 vials of it so people can smell ‘Fleurette’ on my book tours.”
It’ll certainly make for a more sensory experience at the inaugural Australian Business Council Dubai Literary Lunch, at which the author will appear on Wednesday. But the sweet-smelling notes of May roses, violets and jasmine are more than simply a gimmick. They’re proof that McIntosh’s writing has moved into a more richly detailed, interesting and realistic phase since she began to inch towards historical-romantic drama, away from the epic fantasy trilogies and children’s books that characterised her early work.
“Readers want to have the confidence that you understand the era in which the book is set, so for The Perfumer’s Secret, I needed to know everything about the First World War from a French perspective,” she says.
“I had to understand those people and that town in 1914. In my previous book, The Last Dance, there’s only a relatively short part of the story in Marrakech, but I needed to spend a week there to bring it to life for the reader. I guess doing that kind of research has become a signature of my writing – and it’s putting a lot of oxygen into the stories. I also happen to love it.”
Combining an era with believable characters and a coherent story – usually involving conflict in some form – is one of the many tips she offers in the workshops and masterclasses she runs for new writers. This year, she published the non-fiction guide How to Write Your Blockbuster, so in addition to opening her books to the UAE market during this trip, she hopes, eventually, to run some workshops here, too.
“We travel a lot from Australia, and deliberately route ourselves through the UAE because my whole family loves the place,” she says. “So I’m sure there are lots of people in the UAE who could write, and just need the impetus, motivation and, most of all, confidence to do it.
“Actually, what I find is that it’s the middle-aged authors who have lived a life who have the most important, interesting voices. They just need someone to give them the key to unlock the door. Imagine the stories that we haven’t heard before that could come out of the UAE – there’s a willing, hungry world out there keen to hear them, that’s for sure.”
Which is what you might expect McIntosh to say – after all, she didn’t start writing until she was 40. Today, 15 years and 31 books later, she’s in the enviable position of having a fan base that eagerly awaits her new work.
Yes, she’s an avowedly commercial fiction writer, often read by women, who devour her novels of, as her website puts it, “historical-romantic adventure”. But the sheer effort she puts into crafting these tales of intrigue, danger and love elevates McIntosh to another level.
“Just in the last few days, I’ve had readers begging me to set my next story in Malta or Denmark, just because they like to armchair-travel with me,” she says with a laugh. “It happens all the time.”
The next question, then, is obvious – how about setting one in the UAE?
“Well, that would be interesting, wouldn’t it?” she says. “Actually, the book I’m publishing in 2017 is going to be in northern India, because people are always fascinated by that country. I’ve been there a few times already and I’m looking forward to going back.
“But yes, I’d love to set one in the UAE. The history of the place is pretty short, but not the history of the people, and that’s what I adore. So, maybe something nomadic or to do with the Silk Road, the merchants who used to come through … all very exciting and I’d love to write something around that.
“In fact, now you’ve got me thinking about it, I can feel it in my water that I probably will.”
