Today’s the day! The Proxy Bride has arrived and is in book shops! Kind of incredible to be holding it in my hands. For many decades the term, ‘proxy bride’ has been whispered, rarely spoken of, let alone written about – a long-hidden part of our history. It’s unlikely we’ll see Italian-Australian proxy marriages again and I wanted to write about them because these women especially were remarkably brave and their stories deserve more than a whisper.
It was actually Nonno Anni who set me to writing this book. When I was talking to him about his life for, Joe’s Fruit Shop and Milk Bar, by chance he mentioned that during WW2 in Australia when he and other Italians got sent to internment camps, the wives and children suddenly left alone on the farms did it very tough and almost starved. But a group of them banded together, he told me, and kept their farms going. That struck and I knew I’d return one day to write about it.
When I learned some of these women were proxy brides, it opened up even more to the story. Of course, this is just one part of, The Proxy Bride. There’s much more including some laughs, cooking, music inspired by Nanna Francesca’s 1950s stereogram, secrets and quite a few Italian brands and traditions you may recognise! I hope you enjoy reading it.❤️🍝🎶 Zoë x
Available today in paperback and ebook in book shops, department stores and online. (Will let you know when there is audio book news.) Thanks to all those at HQ Fiction and HarperCollins who helped bring this about and to you for your lovely ongoing support for all my books. So very much appreciated! Zoë xx
1940s, Brisbane – you’re walking along a city street and suddenly a smiling photographer in a suit and tie hands you a card that reads: Your photograph has just been taken. Then he moves away to find his next mark. The following day you hand over the card at a photo kiosk to see your image and maybe order a copy…
A post script – there were too many little incidents to include them all in, 
Perhaps I was a bit too sentimental in my previous post, (I can be at the best of times!) It might’ve been because Wyandra Street features so strongly in my family history and now, little remains of how the area once was and another bit will soon vanish. But I accept life keeps going on, change happens and so it is. In the meantime, we connect and live on in our stories and I feel very blessed to be able to share these stories with you and to hear yours in return. Gentile auguri! Zoe xx
I’m so thrilled that, 
Certain places give a funny feeling when you return to them decades on. Perhaps it’s something that’s more inside yourself than in the building with its recognisable, old glimpses and smells, even if these are veiled in years of change. I found myself back at the Red Hill Skate Arena for the first time since I last roller skated there when I was 13 in the 1980s. (And in another layer of family history, my Mum and Dad had a ‘skate date’ there back in 1967!)
As you may recall from, Joe’s Fruit Shop and Milk Bar, when I went to locate the places I was writing about, it was sad to find most had disappeared beneath ash, bulldozers and high-rises – the milk bar, Astoria Café, Regent Theatre and Trocadero to name a few.
In this photograph of my family’s fruit shop and milk bar in its earlier days, it’s apparent how it began very modestly with my grandparents standing on the footpath in Ann Street selling produce from a ‘hole in the wall’ before they expanded the space to include a milk bar. Visible in the top left is some of the sign that hung over the footpath from around the early 1950s. It was white with ‘milk bar’ in red Perspex letters and lit up at night.
Official opening of Anzac Square in Brisbane on 25th April, 1930 (taken from Ann St looking towards Adelaide St).
Zoë Boccabella 