And then came Playing with Keys, and now Song for Emilia.

For those who have followed the story of Sandra and her music, Nick and Emilia and Curradeen, this latest work “puts all the characters on an even path … in spite of the variables of life”.

“In my heart I am happy with where we have got to and it does feel good to have it finished,” Julia said.

The pressure to give her readers more after the first, and then the second book, came she admits from her son-in-law, whose over-the-shoulder parting shot one day of “You still haven’t finished … I want to know if they (Sandra and Nick) get together” ignited a spark in her writer’s mind.

“I have had fun writing this book.

“There are still the musical touches throughout the book’s graphics (thanks to her daughter Rosie Sutherland) and with Sandra now studying at the Conservatorium in Sydney, there are plenty of classical musical references but there is other music too … it is 1964.

“And there are disasters and stormy times – there was a terrible drought during that period and farmers were shooting their stock plus the first soldiers were being sent to Vietnam.

“Then there are the emotional turmoils of youth – Sandra is now 19, away from Nick, there is a fellow student, Billy, who plays the saxophone, and there is the falling out between Sandra and Emilia.”

Julia said she wanted the book to be personal, something young people could identify with, not too politically charged, but also not the dystopic worlds of much teen-fiction.

“The timing of the book is deliberate – the early 60s – things are changing but the swinging times overseas had not yet percolated through to Australia.”

Song for Emilia will be launched at the Bowra Regional Writers’ Expo on Sunday, November 19, and an airing on Radio 2NVR on November 2, 11am.