Vickie Mac | fashion fiction

Hi,

I'm Vickie Mac, novelist of high stakes, big drama, fashion-centred mysteries. I began penning A Tartan Affair, the first book in a trilogy back in 2009. There have been too many hurdles to count, but here I am back and ready to bring my complex characters to life. I hope you enjoy learning a little more about me, my characters, and my writing journey.

What I'm Writing Now

A Tartan Affair

A Tartan Affair is the first of a fashion-centred mystery trilogy. It tells the story of Clara Parris, born in 1937 at The BellTower Maternity Hospital. Just hours after her birth, she is snatched from her mother and sold to Melbourne's most notorious socialite - Josephine Parris.

Nineteen years on, Josephine has her daughter's future as the secretary to a Government official all planned out, but Clara has other ideas. Desperate to become a fashion designer during the height of Melbourne's booming rag trade era, Clara is thrown into the spotlight after designing a dress from a discarded bolt of tartan fabric. Her mother's plight to stop her is unrelenting, but Clara, catapulting to overnight success, earns herself a spot on the big stage designing a gown for the upcoming prestigious 'Gown of the Year' competition. There is nothing Josephine can do about it. Or so it seems.

Can Clara outwit the high-powered Josephine Parris to pursue her career?

Meanwhile, Clara's closest friend Lilly stumbles on an old journal that lures her to The BellTower where the fate of young women and their unborn babies are at the mercy of greedy profiteers. Clara is torn between helping Lilly rescue the women of The BellTower and fending off her cruel mother who continues to ambush her career. As Josephine closes in, Clara's potential to win Gown of the Year hangs in the balance. She must do everything she can to make the cut off for the competition. But will she succeed once Lilly discovers Clara isn't who she thinks she is? And will Josephine stop her dreams yet again? After all, she's got the connections - she's got the money. How hard could it be?

Illustration by Alexandra Nea

Moving between the 1930s and the 1950s, A Tartan Affair interweaves the passionate and surprising stories of three women. Clara and Josephine, bound not only by a contrived mother/daughter relationship, but by a haute couture dress that will change both their lives forever. And Lilly, embroiled in the contents of a harrowing journal, determined to learn the fate of the women who suffered great loss at the hands of racketeering criminals behind the formidable walls of The BellTower Maternity Hospital.