Lyndsey McDonnell: 'I built a world in my mind that felt incredibly real'
RELATED COURSES
BY Maya Fernandes
23rd Jul 2026
In this interview Lynsey McDonnell, author of the debut romance novel Bailey Street, shares her advice for writing dual timelines.
'The reader must be completely engrossed in one narrative, yet excited to return to the other. To achieve this, the stakes, character arc, and pace of each storyline should sit at a similar level. I think you want to be able to tell each as its own story and feel the same energy as you do.'
We caught up with Lynsey to discuss her time studying with us, her process for creating believable chemistry between characters and her favourite historical or contemporary romances.
Bailey Street is a sweeping dual-timeline romance following Jessie’s 1868 love story in Western Australia and Rebecca’s present-day search for family secrets. What first inspired you to bring these two characters and timelines together?
The initial spark for this novel was an article I read about the 150th anniversary of the last convict ship to arrive in Western Australia. I learned about the Irish Fenian soldiers who had been tried for treason and sentenced to 20 years’ penal servitude. John Boyle O’Reilly was put in charge of a gang building a road in a south-west country town, and he was given a fair bit of freedom around town… enough freedom to fall in love with the warder’s daughter! So that’s where my imagination took over and where the forbidden love story of my historical timeline came from.
Around the same time, I became obsessed with a little colonial cottage nestled into Fremantle Port. It is the last house standing of these late 19th century workers’ cottages, and again, it fed my imagination. I love to read a dual timeline novel and knew that’s what I wanted to write, so the little cottage on Bailey Street became the house that would connect past and present.
The third piece of the puzzle – the piece that created Rebecca in my contemporary storyline – was the discovery that I have an older half-sister. Nicky found out that her dad wasn’t really her dad, and discovered her biological father was my dad, here in Australia.
And so, Bailey Street follows Rebecca, an Irish radio producer who travels to Western Australia to meet her biological father. She gets caught up in the fight to save his colonial cottage from demolition. With the help of a handsome Irish history professor, she uncovers John and Jessie’s forbidden love story and the family secrets that Bailey Street has kept for 150 years.
The novel moves seamlessly between modern-day Liverpool and 1860s Western Australia. Do you have any advice for writers working on dual timelines who are struggling to make both narratives equally compelling?
The best advice I can give is not to proceed unless you do have equally compelling stories. I think I give this advice as a reader even more than as a writer – don’t do it to us! I am such a sucker for a great dual timeline story, but I get so disappointed when the present-day story exists purely as a vehicle to tell the historical story. If that’s all it is, just write a historical novel without the distraction.
It took me two years from when the seed of this story was planted to the point where I actually started writing my novel. The main reason for that delay was the false starts I had with the contemporary storyline. I scribbled ideas but none hooked me, until my half-sister came into our lives. Something clicked for me then – I had a young woman at a pivotal moment in her life, a strong reason to arrive at Bailey Street and a long way to go from being fiercely closed off to being open to love.
The reader must be completely engrossed in one narrative, yet excited to return to the other. To achieve this, the stakes, character arc, and pace of each storyline should sit at a similar level. I think you want to be able to tell each as its own story and feel the same energy as you do.
Romance is at the heart of Bailey Street, with Jessie and Rebecca each experiencing their own journeys of love, loss and discovery. How did you approach creating authentic emotional connections between your characters and developing romantic relationships that feel natural on the page?
John Boyle O’Reilly helped me out here. He was a poet who left behind poems of love and loss and heartache. He left journals that detailed the angst and hopelessness of his love for Jessie. In his photos, you can see the depth of feeling and thoughtfulness in his eyes. So I built a picture of him in my mind that became very three-dimensional. I felt that I knew his character and could play out scenes just as he might have lived them.
Jessie didn’t leave behind that kind of a record, so she is much more fictional – she was created in my mind as the kind of woman a man like John would fall for, and the kind of woman who would risk so much to be with him.
I also spent a long time researching the time and place, and the people who settled in country Western Australia in the 1860’s. So, I built a world in my mind that felt incredibly real, and these characters went about their lives as if in a movie. From that feeling of desire and first love, through to the circumstances and people who would keep them apart, I could put myself in their shoes and feel it all with them. The facial expressions and body language of authors as they’re writing romantic and intimate scenes must be hilarious to watch!
As for Rebecca in the present-day storyline – it’s obviously a very different world, and I feel that today’s love stories are constrained less by circumstance and more by our own inner turmoil, doubts, and barriers. Rebecca has her own history that makes her closed off to love, but stepping away from the churn of her busy life, meeting Liam, and uncovering a forbidden love story – all have a way of opening up her heart. I really enjoyed cracking her open and giving her the kind of man she deserves. I had a great time showing the other side of this nerdy, handsome history professor and introducing some heat between those two.
What I love about a dual timeline love story is the way the world can change so much, but love is still love. Our hearts are just as lovely and as fragile as they ever were.
Which writers do you admire and what are some of your favourite historical or contemporary romances?
My favourite book of all time is The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons. Tatiana and Alexander will stay with me forever. I adore Amy Harmon’s books, especially What the Wind Knows. I really admire Amy’s capacity to step into any era and any genre. I’m a big fan of JoJo Moyes, especially The Giver of Stars. And I adore Mhairi McFarlane for her playful use of language and unbeatable banter, and Marian Keyes for the humour and family dynamics. I think all these authors shaped the kind of story I ended up telling in Bailey Street.
You studied with us on our online Writing Your Novel – Three Months course. How did your time with us shape your approach to writing?
I have raved about this course ever since I did it – Curtis Brown Creative is even in my acknowledgements because of the impact it had on my story.
The course is so comprehensive that if any element of your novel needs work, you’ll identify it and know what it will take to improve it – whether that be in your opening pages, voice, structure, language, synopsis, or your pitch. The value comes from the combination of the content and the feedback you give and receive with your cohort.
For me, I recall two big learnings. The first was that my opening chapters felt like the beginning of a completely different story to the one I outlined in my synopsis. This told me I needed to wipe out most of my darlings in those early pages and get Rebecca straight to Australia where this story could begin. You’re not telling your protagonist’s full life story, you’re telling this particular story. Everything we need to know about them will fall out in the telling of this story.
The second big learning was that a good synopsis should be told in your unique voice, so that it has the same feel as your story. A synopsis has a job to do, but it can have personality, too.
There were so many other aspects of this course that shaped my approach, so that the edits and rewrites I did during and after truly elevated my writing, right to the sentence level. From passive to active language, from cliché to genuine observation and feeling, from skimming your own words to being surprised and impressed by them.
Many of our students find lifelong writing friends on our courses. Are you still in touch with anyone you met during your time studying with us?
Yes! We had the loveliest, most diverse cohort whose stories I’m dying to read when they make their way out into the world. We had people from several countries and we met again a couple of times after the course. While we did eventually drift apart, some of us are still connected on social media.
I was very fortunate to have a fellow Perth writer on the course though, and Annie and I still catch up and support each other however we can. Annie will be at my book launch and I can’t wait to be at hers one day soon, too.
And finally, what’s next for your writing journey?
Right now, it’s all about book launch and celebration for Bailey Street, but this self-promotion is of course very uncomfortable for us writers and I can’t wait to get back in my cave and into the world of book two! It is another dual timeline love story but not so far back – this one is set in Liverpool in the 1970’s and today, in a Georgian home that was once a bit of a slum and is now gentrified. This one has some darker themes, but at its heart, it is still a love story. I think they always will be.
Get your hands on a copy of Bailey Street, out now with Hawkeye Publishing.
Lynsey was a student on our online Writing Your Novel – Three Months course in 2023.
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