Bestseller Petronella McGovern back on familiar ground during visit to Bathurst

In town on Tuesday night for an event at Bathurst Library, the bestseller said she'd been to various parts of the state over the past six weeks on a tour to launch her third book, The Liars.

"And everywhere I go, I meet someone who knows my mum or my dad [former GP Ingrid and former obstetrician Terry] from Bathurst," she said.

"Sometimes it's one of my dad's patients. She says, 'oh, your dad delivered my child back in Bathurst'.

"I was in Port Macquarie and there was a nurse who used to work with Dad and Mum.

"So, yes, the Bathurst connection goes far and wide."

Dr Terry McGovern passed away in 2006, while Dr Ingrid McGovern - who was, for many years, the only female doctor at the Busby Medical Practice and who became the medical superintendent at Bathurst District Hospital in 1983 - passed away in September last year.

"It's lovely to come back," Petronella, who was born and grew up in Bathurst but lives these days on Sydney's northern beaches, said of returning to the city.

"It's nice to see everyone and have the memories.

"I'm staying in the hotel just near where I grew up on George Street. That's nice.

"Mum just loved reading so much and she was the one who, sort of, inspired me to read and probably to write as well.

"After she retired, she started doing a creative writing degree at Charles Sturt. Just for a bit.

"She loved writing. So I think I got that inspiration from her."

Which brings us to The Liars - the reason for the book tour.

"This book is about a lot of things; it's a complex story," Petronella said.

"But there's a mother and daughter relationship - well, three generations of mothers and daughters.

"So I guess that's sort of a nice inspiration from Mum - not that any of the people in the book are us.

"And the town of Kinton Bay in the book is a small community, smaller than Bathurst, but I feel that, growing up in Bathurst, you know a lot of people and small towns have to get on. And that's sort of what's happening in Kinton Bay.

"And there's this past that really needs to be addressed, but it affects different people in different ways.

"And, I guess, in a small town, you need a way to move forward together. And bringing out the truth can sometimes tear towns apart or bring them together. It just depends."

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The book's genesis was in a conversation Petronella had with her own daughter.

"My 15-year-old said she wanted to go to a beach party and I remembered what those beach parties were like and then suddenly I was the mother in the situation, not the daughter," she said.

"I was interested in looking at how things had changed or stayed the same between a mother and a daughter.

"The story looks at something that happened to the mother when she was 15 and now the daughter's the same age and she's [the mother] overprotective and using location apps on the teenagers' phones, but the teenagers are much smarter; they know how to get around those.

"And the teenage girl is a very passionate campaigner and wants to get the truth out. I love the passion of teenagers, but they don't always have the experience and the knowledge to get it right."

Looking back over her three books, Six Minutes (which was released in 2019 after being written over a number of years), The Good Teacher and The Liars, Petronella can see some themes have emerged.

"Family and community and trust and betrayal," she said.

"And who gets to tell the story. Where's the truth in what's happening?

"And, in that way, who has the power in the family and in the community?"

And she knows when one of her books has achieved the ultimate: managing to have a reader disappear within its pages.

"It's lovely when people talk about the characters like they're real people," she said. "Readers then are right into the story."