The Lost Passenger: Frances Quinn on Titanic, a Mother’s Love, and Survival
Inside The Lost Passenger: Frances Quinn on Titanic, a Mother’s Love, and Survival
Hello book friends! In today’s episode, I am absolutely delighted to be chatting with the brilliant Frances Quinn about her fabulous new novel, The Lost Passenger.
We had such a wonderful chat about the inspiration behind this compelling story, and Frances also speaks really openly about the challenges along the way and how she buffers herself against feedback from her team! We dive into her incredible protagonist, Elinor, exploring what drives her to make the life-altering decision to steal another woman's identity to escape her own past. We also chat about the research Frances carried out particularly looking at those who survived the Titanic.
Of course, as always on Best Book Forward, we delved into the five books that have shaped Frances throughout her life and writing journey!
Five Go Adventuring Again by Enid Blyton
Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse by Ursula Moray Williams
The Bomber by Liza Marklund (Currently not available)
The Vizard Mask by Diana Norman (Also currently not available)
Unfortunately, two of these titles seem to be a little tricky to get hold of but if you're intrigued, I'd absolutely recommend keeping an eye out in charity shops, you never know what treasures you might unearth!
Also mentioned in this episode:
This Miseducation of Evie Epworth by Matson Taylor
Swimming For Beginners by Nicola Gill - turns out I don’t have this one but I am waiting for my copy to arrive and cannot wait to read it.
A massive thank you goes out to my brilliant sister, Lottie, for today's question, and, of course for introducing me to Frances and her wonderful books in the first place!
I really hope that you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Honestly, I could have spent hours chatting with Frances! If you're enjoying Best Book Forward, it would mean the absolute world to me if you could take a few moments to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And the very best thing you could do? Tell all your bookish friends about us!
I’ll be back with another brilliant episode next week, and I really hope you’ll join me again for more bookish fun!
Transcript
Hello book friends and welcome back to another episode of Best Book Forward.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Helen, and in this podcast we'll discover the books that have shaped our favourite authors lives.
Speaker A:Kind of like a bookish version of Desert Island Discs.
Speaker A:Today I'm absolutely bursting with excitement to be welcoming the wonderful Frances Quinn to the show.
Speaker A:You may know Frances from her fantastic novels the Small Smallest man and that Bonesetter Woman, and her new novel, the Lost Passenger, which is out now and is a truly wonderful read.
Speaker A:So the Lost Passenger tells the story of Eleanor, a young woman who, having survived the Titanic, makes this incredibly brave decision to disappear and take on someone else's identity.
Speaker A:Why would she do that, you ask?
Speaker A:Well, in our chat today we'll be discussing Eleanor and finding out what would motivate a woman to make such a huge, huge decision.
Speaker A:We'll also be discovering what sparked the idea for this story, as well as learning more about Frances and her writing life.
Speaker A:Of course, later in the show we'll hear Frances tell us about the five books that have shaped her life.
Speaker A:I hope that's got you as excited as I am.
Speaker A:Right, let's get started and give a massive warm welcome to the brilliant Frances Quinn.
Speaker A:Frances, welcome and thank you so much for joining me on Best Book Forward today.
Speaker B:Thanks for having me.
Speaker A:I'm so excited to chat to you.
Speaker A:So this is the second time we've met online you came to our book club.
Speaker A:I can't remember when it was, but to talk to us about the Smallest Man a while ago.
Speaker A:And I remember you telling us all about the Lost Passenger then and being so excited to read it and I loved it.
Speaker A:Well, it's such a fabulous read, so I can't wait to dive into it with you.
Speaker A:Anyway, before I get over excited, why don't we start off by you telling everyone a little bit about what the Lost Passenger is all about.
Speaker B:So the Lost Passenger is about.
Speaker B:It's the story of Eleanor who.
Speaker B:She's the daughter of a millionaire, but he's a self made man.
Speaker B:So she's rich, but she's not posh.
Speaker B:And she finds herself tricked really into marriage to the son of an earl.
Speaker B:She thinks it's a love match, but it's not.
Speaker B:Very soon realises that in fact he's just married her for her money because the estate needs propping up.
Speaker B:Think Downton Abbey and she has a child and discovers that it's going to be brought up in the aristocratic way.
Speaker B:She won't be allowed to have very much to do with him, which was normal Then, but is also because they don't want her to influence the child.
Speaker B:He's the heir to the estate and so on.
Speaker B:They become passengers on the Titanic.
Speaker B:And when the Titanic goes down, Eleanor realises this is her chance to escape.
Speaker B:If she can get herself and Teddy listed among the dead and they can disappear, she can start a new life.
Speaker B:But Teddy is still the heir to the estate.
Speaker B:So if the Stoughton family were ever to find out he's still alive, they could come and take him away from her.
Speaker B:So she starts a new life in New York, steals another woman's identity, but is always looking behind her to see if the past is going to catch up.
Speaker A:That's given me goosebumps.
Speaker A:It's such a brilliant, brilliant idea, isn't it?
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:So there's just.
Speaker A:I mean, we were just saying I episode really hard to plan for because, I mean, I just had a list of things I wanted to talk to you about because there's so much in here.
Speaker A:But let's kick off by talking about the inspiration.
Speaker A:Where did the idea for this all come from?
Speaker A:Frances?
Speaker B:So the idea came quite oddly, actually.
Speaker B:I wanted to write something about historical event that I thought lots of people would know about.
Speaker B:And the Titanic came to me sort of out of the blue.
Speaker B:I wasn't one of those people that is fascinated by the Titanic.
Speaker B:I have since discovered there are many of them, but I wasn't.
Speaker B:I had never seen the film.
Speaker B:I remember it being on Blue Peter when I was young.
Speaker B:Everyone knows the story, but I wasn't a titanorak, as they, as they're called.
Speaker B:And while I was sort of vaguely thinking, yeah, that could be something, I read an article about 911 and it was talking about the fact that they will never really know how many people were killed in 911 because they don't know for certain how many people were in the towers.
Speaker B:Who was walking along the street past at the time.
Speaker B:And you know, in, in all that chaos, if someone wanted to disappear, there's a great opportunity.
Speaker B:And I thought that's all that must also have been true of the Titanic.
Speaker B:You know, they still don't really know how many people died.
Speaker B:They don't really know how many people were on board.
Speaker B:And so that was where I had the idea, okay, well there could be someone on board the Titanic who seizes that opportunity to disappear.
Speaker B:And then I work backwards from I knew I wanted it to be a woman.
Speaker B:Who is this woman?
Speaker B:Why does she want to disappear and then work forward?
Speaker B:Where does she disappear to?
Speaker B:That would be A huge challenge given where she's come from.
Speaker B:So it kind of unfolded that way, really, which was different from my first two books, which were much more about based on a real character and then hung on the events of their lives.
Speaker B:So this one was completely fictional.
Speaker A:That is fascinating.
Speaker A:That is so interesting.
Speaker A:And it's funny because when you.
Speaker A:I was reading it and we get to.
Speaker A:I mean, it's something we'll talk about a bit later as well.
Speaker A:But when we get to the part where Eleanor is making up her mind of whether.
Speaker A:Whether she could do this, whether she could take somebody's identity, I was like, the timing made it possible because she wouldn't have had, like, phones and things.
Speaker A:But you think then with 9, 11, like, even with people's technology, that's.
Speaker B:But, yeah, you can still disappear and people do.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:How interesting.
Speaker A:Anyway, sorry.
Speaker A:Right, so there are so many great characters in this book, some really wonderful women, and we could go into all of them, but we would literally be here all day.
Speaker A:So we're going to focus on Eleanor because she gives us so much to chat about.
Speaker A:She is a wonderful character.
Speaker A:I loved her spirit.
Speaker A:Spirit and her resilience.
Speaker A:And I'd just love to know, once you.
Speaker A:Where does she come from for you, was she fully formed or did she develop as you wrote?
Speaker B:She wasn't at all fully formed.
Speaker B:So some of the characters in the book were.
Speaker B:But so where I.
Speaker B:My starting point with Eleanor was, I knew I wanted her to come from.
Speaker B:I mean, she can't be said to come from a working class background.
Speaker B:Her dad's a millionaire, but her dad has literally come from nothing.
Speaker B:So she has grown up in a very different world.
Speaker B:So that was there from the start that she would not be posh, basically, but because the character in my previous book, that bonesetter woman, Endurance, was very feisty and very, you know, took on all comers and I wanted a contrast.
Speaker B:So I thought, well, this girl going into this, you know, she goes to live with his family, which is weird in itself.
Speaker B:I thought, how can I make that more difficult?
Speaker B:Well, if she's a shy character, quite timid, you know, likes to disappear into her books, that makes her situation even worse.
Speaker B:So originally, Eleanor was.
Speaker B:She was quite intelligent and, you know, she was still involved in her dad's business as far as anyone could be in those days, but she was very shy.
Speaker B:Her nickname in the family was Mouse.
Speaker B:And so it made it even more difficult that she was suddenly plunged into this aristocratic household where she felt out of place.
Speaker B:It very quickly became clear they didn't want her there.
Speaker B:So that was the first version.
Speaker B:That was the version I sent to my agent.
Speaker B:Not my agent, my editor.
Speaker B:And unfortunately my editor hated her.
Speaker B:She said, she's a wimp, she's boring.
Speaker B:I find her annoying.
Speaker B:So, you know, do something.
Speaker B:And then she came up with a genius idea, which she does sometimes.
Speaker B:She said, reverse the arc.
Speaker B:Which, by which she meant instead of Elena beginning quite timid and shy and becoming bold as a reaction to everything that's happened to her, she said, make, you know, make her bold at the beginning.
Speaker B:And then they crush her.
Speaker B:And then she rises from that and it makes her a more interesting character from the beginning.
Speaker B:I mean, I still have some sympathy with original Eleanor because I think there is often pressure in books to make every female character feisty and bold and brave and, you know, shy, quiet people are interesting too.
Speaker B:So I might one day bring one of those back.
Speaker B:But that's.
Speaker B:That was Eleanor's development.
Speaker B:And I must admit, she did become easier to write then because when she was shy, timid Eleanor, a lot of it was, well, what can I do?
Speaker B:Because she was literally trapped in this house.
Speaker B:There's no divorce.
Speaker B:She didn't even want to tell her dad the situation because she didn't want to worry him and there was nothing he could do.
Speaker B:So it was quite difficult when she was shy and timid for her to do anything.
Speaker B:She can't really go anywhere.
Speaker B:So my editor was right.
Speaker B:Once she became more feisty, there was more kind of backwards and forwards, more resistance to her mother in law.
Speaker B:And then, I think, more interesting when they eventually do crush her.
Speaker B:So the turning point for me was when the one thing she's always resisted is she's not going to change the way she speaks.
Speaker B:And then finally when they get her at her lowest ebb and her mother in law says, well, of course you can't spend more time with what she calls him, Edward, because he'll end up speaking like you.
Speaker B:And that's when she says, right, I'll take elocution lessons.
Speaker B:And that's when she's like, okay, they've won.
Speaker B:I'll become what they want me to be.
Speaker A:So interesting.
Speaker A:Right, so there's a couple of things I want to sort of go back over there then.
Speaker A:So we talked just briefly before we came on about, you know, your edits and things.
Speaker A:You must have to have quite thick skin then, like, because you say, because you obviously really care about your characters, you know, and maybe that sort of first version of Eleanor will find it.
Speaker A:But she, I was just thinking about it, I was like, there'd be a really hard family to come up against, wouldn't they, if you were that person?
Speaker A:So maybe.
Speaker A:Maybe that person needs to find another family or another situation.
Speaker A:But how do you sort of buffer yourself against, you know, those.
Speaker B:It's hard.
Speaker B:It's really.
Speaker B:I mean, I suppose you buffer yourself in the sense that you know that your editor is on your side.
Speaker B:I know my editor is really good.
Speaker B:I mean, I have been so lucky with her.
Speaker B:She's almost never.
Speaker B:Well, I won't say she's almost never been wrong.
Speaker B:I have almost never disagreed with anything she said.
Speaker B:But it is really hard, you know, you.
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:When you send it off, I tend to think I.
Speaker B:I think I lose all critical faculties at that point.
Speaker B:I think I'm a bit like, I've got a beginning, I've got an end.
Speaker B:There are some people in it and they do things.
Speaker B:Surely that will be enough.
Speaker B:And then, you know, as soon as she comes back and she says, oh, you know, this is wrong, that's wrong.
Speaker B:Always in a very nice way.
Speaker B:The instant she says it, I can see it.
Speaker B:And sometimes I can see it by then, because I've had a gap because I am quite a slow writer.
Speaker B:So I'm always writing right up to the deadline.
Speaker B:So I never really have time to shove it in a drawer and think about it, which you do really need.
Speaker B:So if I had that, maybe my edits wouldn't be so big, I don't know.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But everybody is different.
Speaker B:So I tend to get one massive edit, which I don't even.
Speaker B:I wouldn't dignify it with the name Edit, really.
Speaker B:It's a complete rewrite, usually.
Speaker B:I mean, it will be probably 70% different words from the first version to the second, and then I'll get a very much smaller one after that.
Speaker B:But then some people get four big ones, some people get eight small ones.
Speaker B:Everyone's a bit different, really.
Speaker B:And I'd rather do it that way.
Speaker B:I'd rather just have to do it all at once.
Speaker B:But, yeah, in terms of a thick skin, you just have to think we are on the same team.
Speaker B:She's not getting at me, she's trying to make it better.
Speaker B:But it will always feel like someone marking your homework and giving you D minus and then saying, can you do it again?
Speaker A:But then you've got that thing of that character that you've created as well.
Speaker A:Must be really hard.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And sometimes you feel quite offended on their behalf, really.
Speaker A:When you're doing that, then you're sort of doing your rewrites.
Speaker A:Are there things that you squirrel away and thinking, right, maybe not here, but later down the line, or do you.
Speaker B:Just sort of keep to keep into different books?
Speaker B:Yeah, oh, yeah, always.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So when I wrote the Smallest Man, I had to scrap the whole last third section where originally Nat Davey, because this happened to Jeffrey Hudson, the real life inspiration, was captured by pirates and taken to Morocco.
Speaker B:And I had a whole third section about how he met different people there and he managed to escape and I had to scrap all that.
Speaker B:And one of the.
Speaker B:So he became friends in there with two.
Speaker B:So he basically got put into the Sultan's harem and he became friends with two women.
Speaker B:And one of the women was the sultan's wife, and she was very beautiful and very spoiled and quite awful in many ways.
Speaker B:And she became.
Speaker B:Gosh, I can't remember her name now, the sister in that bonesetter woman, Lucinda.
Speaker B:She pretty much became Lucinda.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I recycled her.
Speaker B:So anything you really like, you keep.
Speaker B:And I never delete anything.
Speaker B:I have a file called Bits Cut out, and even just a sentence, I put it in there because I might need it later on.
Speaker A:Oh, I love that.
Speaker B:And it's a great relief when you suddenly think, oh, do you know what?
Speaker B:I had that paragraph.
Speaker B:I can just put it back in.
Speaker A:You must have to have such a good memory, because I would just be like, what would I.
Speaker B:Sometimes I can't quite remember the words and have to search for it.
Speaker B:But yeah, it's lovely when you find a bit that you wrote earlier and you can just sl.
Speaker B:Slot it back in.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker A:Okay, let's move back on to talk about Eleanor and what it was like for women of that era.
Speaker A:Francis.
Speaker A:There were parts of this book that made my blood boil, but also had me so worried for her.
Speaker A:So when she just has her baby and you know, every mother's instinct is to want to be with that child, and they're treating her like she's hysterical, but threatening her with it as well.
Speaker A:It's like.
Speaker A:It was really quite scary because she is alone.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, she is completely alone.
Speaker A:She doesn't have any allies to sort of help her.
Speaker A:But also there's this awful provision in her husband's will that just makes her just.
Speaker A:Just so insignificant in their family.
Speaker B:It makes her completely irrelevant.
Speaker B:So they.
Speaker B:So they make a will that.
Speaker B:So the law was that a man could make all the decisions about his children, and obviously it was up to the man whether he took any notice of his Wife or not.
Speaker B:But that was the law that, you know, when it came to things like where does the child go to school or what religion is he?
Speaker B:The dad had the say.
Speaker B:And so the provision that they make in his will is that if Frederick, her husband, should die while Teddy is still a child, that guardian, that guardianship role goes to his parents.
Speaker B:So it sort of skips over her.
Speaker B:And the reason is because if he did die and she married again, it would mean she couldn't take Teddy with her.
Speaker B:So that's the reason that they do it.
Speaker B:So that's what's hanging over her when she escapes to New York, because she knows if they ever find Teddy's alive, they.
Speaker B:They legally can take him from her.
Speaker B:So that's, that's why it's so important that she keeps her secret.
Speaker A:Would that have been something that was common?
Speaker B:I think.
Speaker B:I mean, obviously it's an aristocratic thing.
Speaker B:You know, your.
Speaker B:Every man on the street wasn't doing it, but, yeah, it was definitely a thing that people did.
Speaker B:And, you know, the whole thing of that the father.
Speaker B:The father was in charge.
Speaker B:The law was slightly changing in that, you know, some divorce had come in, there were some provisions for women to get custody of their children, but it was.
Speaker B:It was very, very difficult.
Speaker B:So everything was still tipped against it.
Speaker B:And then the thing is, if, If Eleanor had been from their class, she wouldn't have found any of this unusual.
Speaker B:It was just what they did.
Speaker B:And also, they wouldn't have needed to make the provisions they did in their minds, because they don't want that, really.
Speaker B:They don't want her to have anything to do with Teddy.
Speaker B:She's.
Speaker B:She's a source of money and she's an incubator, basically.
Speaker B:And I think, you know, it's not.
Speaker B:I'm sure it isn't like that in the aristocratic world now, but, you know, if you think of royalty, there's still a lot of pressure on, you know, princesses.
Speaker B:We won't name any names to produce heirs.
Speaker B:So that, that feeling is sort of still there.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I did.
Speaker B:I did watch quite a lot of Series five of the Crown as research as well.
Speaker A:I mean, it's so sad because you think they're so wrapped up in their world that they fail to see what this woman is bringing.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:That's so sad.
Speaker B:And they have, you know, their.
Speaker B:The estate is falling to pieces because they're clueless and they're constantly looking back and trying to keep people the same.
Speaker B:And actually, if they took any notice of her business now, they could have kept the estate.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But, you know, she's.
Speaker B:She's nothing to them.
Speaker B:They're not.
Speaker B:She's not worth anything in that respect.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That broke my heart because she really did.
Speaker A:She.
Speaker A:She really thought it was like a love match and everything.
Speaker A:It was just like, oh, that's so cruel to be tricked.
Speaker B:It was tricky to do because I didn't want her to look like an idiot.
Speaker B:She is only 19 and he is the first man that's ever paid attention to her, and he is very charming.
Speaker B:And it was normal then that an aristocratic marriage would happen very, very quickly.
Speaker B:And so she doesn't really have time to sit back and think, oh, hang on a minute.
Speaker B:But actually, if you look back, I think.
Speaker B:I think I read somewhere that Princess Diana and Prince Charles, as he was then, only met 12 times before their wedding.
Speaker A:Oh, really?
Speaker B:So even then, you know, was very quick, get engaged, get on with it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yikes.
Speaker A:Makes me glad for my humble little life.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:I loved Eleanor's entrepreneurial spark when she has this brilliant idea to haggle over these lace scraps, which she repurposes and makes a living from.
Speaker A:She actually reminded me a bit of my mum, who was also called Frances.
Speaker A:So my mum was a single mom, three kids, and it was a challenge, but she would always come up these brilliant ways to make ends meet and repurpose things as well.
Speaker A:So I can't help but feel that she would have loved Eleanor.
Speaker A:Like, I just think she would have loved her.
Speaker A:But I was just really fascinated by, you know, the resilience of these women.
Speaker A:So they're either working really hard and making things, or they're out in their push carts.
Speaker A:I hadn't heard about these New York push carts before, which I just thought was so interesting.
Speaker A:So I'd love if you could talk to us about bringing these women and their livelihoods into the story and what that was like for you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I read a lot about the Lower east side at that time, and it was just such a fascinating place.
Speaker B:I mean, it was.
Speaker B:There were.
Speaker B:It was full of immigrants from all over the world, and they were all bringing their traditions and their foods and their languages.
Speaker B:So you would walk down the street and you might hear 12 languages and.
Speaker B:And everybody was coming for a better life.
Speaker B:Everybody was coming, they were bringing.
Speaker B:So, for example, a lot of the.
Speaker B:The Californian wine industry comes from immigrants from Italy and France who would bring cuttings, vine cuttings, they call them suit suitcase cuttings, and that would be the start of a vineyard.
Speaker B:And so there was or they would bring, you know, whatever materials they had used at home, that's what they would bring in their suitcase.
Speaker B:And they were all really striving.
Speaker B:If they couldn't make that life for themselves, they were hoping to make it for their children.
Speaker B:And there was free education.
Speaker B:So there was this feeling that you could become anything at that time.
Speaker B:And the push carts were amazing.
Speaker B:So people could literally rent a push cart very cheaply and you could sell anything.
Speaker B:They might sell potatoes, prayer books, you name it, they would sell it.
Speaker B:But most people were very hand to mouth.
Speaker B:You know, you would.
Speaker B:You'd make a tiny profit on what you were selling.
Speaker B:And Eleanor is very clear that's not going to work because she's got this work sewing that the family have found for her and that's steady.
Speaker B:And so to chuck that in, she's got to be sure that the push cart is going to do more than that.
Speaker B:But she's got all these lessons that she's kind of sort of absorbed from her dad because he was a real entrepreneur and he had come and he is based on a real person, actually, who literally came from, you know, nothing and.
Speaker B:And built a business up and married his secretary.
Speaker B:So she has this entrepreneurial spirit.
Speaker B:So she's very clear that it's only going to work if she can make a decent amount of money.
Speaker B:And the idea for the scraps that she sells, actually, I was thinking, what on earth can she sell that's going to make that sort of money that she would know how to do?
Speaker B:And a friend of mine, Matson Taylor, who wrote the Miseducation of Evie Epworth.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:He said, I've just read a biography of Mary Quant, read that.
Speaker B:It's about how she got started.
Speaker B:There might be something in there.
Speaker B:And sure enough, there was.
Speaker B:One of her first really popular items was she made Peter Pan collars in white plastic and you would buy one and you could just put it on any top or any dress.
Speaker B:And that was what gave me the idea for, you know, these remnants that people use just to dress up an old outfit.
Speaker B:So that.
Speaker B:That was thanks to Mary Quant and Matson Taylor.
Speaker A:I love that, because I was thinking it must have been something that they did.
Speaker A:It's so feasible, isn't it?
Speaker A:You think it's.
Speaker A:And it's so clever that a woman would look at that.
Speaker A:You know, what is it?
Speaker A:What do they say?
Speaker A:One.
Speaker A:One man's.
Speaker A:One man.
Speaker A:Is it one man's trash?
Speaker B:One man's trash is someone else's treasure kind of thing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's what it should do.
Speaker B:I mean, people may have done, but I think in reality, margins would have been so tight that the factories probably had some other use for those scraps.
Speaker A:But who knows that it's fiction and we're allowed to do this.
Speaker A:And it worked perfectly as well.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:So Eleanor makes this huge decision to become Molly.
Speaker A:And this is driven by her fierce motherly instinct to be with her son.
Speaker A:And the story just really takes off once she makes that decision.
Speaker A:And it's just so gripping.
Speaker A:I couldn't wait to see how it was all going to unfold.
Speaker A:Was the lost passenger.
Speaker A:I mean, obviously you said, like, Eleanor sort of changed from the first draft a lot, but did it unfold organically as you were writing, or did you have that plan all the way through?
Speaker B:So I always had the rough structure.
Speaker B:I knew that I knew roughly where she was going to start and then that the Titanic would be turning point and that she would go somewhere.
Speaker B:And I think I probably came quite early on to.
Speaker B:Because obviously she had to go somewhere of that time.
Speaker B:And I knew that the tenements were then and that you had all these immigrants and that they would be very poor.
Speaker B:So I.
Speaker B:I think I had all of that quite early on.
Speaker B:But what was quite tricky with the.
Speaker B:The New York part was how did I keep alive the threat of the family finding her, but still make it convincing that they didn't find her yet.
Speaker B:So it was kind of a balance.
Speaker B:So, for example, there's a scene very early on, shortly after she arrives, when her picture's in the newspaper and she has to quickly hide that and hope that no one's going to see it.
Speaker B:But I had to make it convincing that she could hide it and that.
Speaker B:And also that, you know, that she's sitting at the table and the family are looking at this picture, and she has to think quickly and say, oh, yeah, you know, that's the person I was working for on the ship because Molly was a maid.
Speaker B:That's the person I was working from on the ship.
Speaker B:And somebody's said, we look alike.
Speaker B:So it's that sort of thing of like, if almost hiding in plain sight.
Speaker B:And then, you know, there are things she can't do.
Speaker B:They're living.
Speaker B:They're living seven people to two rooms, a shared toilet.
Speaker B:They have to do everything themselves.
Speaker B:She has literally never lifted a finger.
Speaker B:So she has to watch things like, how do you peel a potato?
Speaker B:How do you make a bed?
Speaker B:And one of the family realizes quite early.
Speaker B:And I had that from quite early That I wanted Anna to know what was going on but not give away her secret.
Speaker A:I love Anna.
Speaker B:Yeah, she's.
Speaker B:She's a funny character because she did come fully formed.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And I didn't realize why until I got to the end of the book.
Speaker B:And then I thought, oh, she's somebody I know.
Speaker B:She's the mum of a friend of mine who sadly since died.
Speaker B:But I suddenly thought, oh, that's Faye.
Speaker B:That's why she was so easy.
Speaker B:So that was.
Speaker B:That's happened a couple of times.
Speaker B:You don't realize you're doing it and then you're like, oh, yeah, no, I know.
Speaker B:I do know that person.
Speaker A:And oh, how special for your friend.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, they do.
Speaker B:And they recognize.
Speaker B:They recognized her in it and said, yeah, she would be very happy with that.
Speaker B:She was someone who had a kind heart and a sharp tongue, which is Anna.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, I love that.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:We have to talk a little bit about the Titanic.
Speaker A:It's like you.
Speaker A:I mean, I think in all of your books you are so brilliant at bringing scenes to life.
Speaker A:You make, you know, the push carts and everything.
Speaker A:It's just you can actually imagine what it was like being there.
Speaker A:So did you finally watch Titanic then or did you do other research?
Speaker B:I did watch Titanic because I thought I better just check that it's not the same story.
Speaker B:And I was a bit surprised that there are.
Speaker B:There is obviously a similarity, but there was nothing I could do about it by then.
Speaker B:And it's not that similar.
Speaker B:But yeah, I did watch it.
Speaker B:The Titanic is such a funny subject because there are so many people who are absolutely fascinated by it and they know every detail.
Speaker B:So I knew I had to get the research sort of spot on.
Speaker B:But yeah.
Speaker B:What was interesting?
Speaker B:Well, one of the things that was interesting was reading because obviously she's a survivor.
Speaker B:So I was reading the survivors stories and that was really quite traumatic because I think they get hidden in the whole story.
Speaker B:And in fact, really the horror of it gets hidden.
Speaker B:I mean, it's become popular culture.
Speaker B:You know, we've got the jokes about moving the deck chairs on the Titanics.
Speaker B:We've got Celine Dion singing that song.
Speaker B:We've got every passenger on a cruise ship recreating that scene at the front of the ship.
Speaker B:And we've sort of forgotten this was a horrendous thing.
Speaker B:Thousands of people died, but the people who didn't die were sitting in lifeboats.
Speaker B:Watch.
Speaker B:They weren't watching them die.
Speaker B:They couldn't see it, but they knew they were out there and they were crying for their mums and they were praying, how would you ever get over that?
Speaker B:So that was quite.
Speaker B:I wanted to bring that to the fore, that it wasn't just, oh, hooray, we've got off the ship, everything's fine.
Speaker B:Those people were scarred forever.
Speaker B:And there was one.
Speaker B:There's one little boy.
Speaker B:He was nine when the Titanic sank, and he remembered that sound of the people crying for the rest of his life.
Speaker B:And he lived in Detroit next to a baseball stadium, and his dad used to take him out every Saturday because he couldn't bear the sound of the crowd.
Speaker B:Reminded him of that noise.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I wanted to get that across, really, that even if you survived, it wasn't hooray for me.
Speaker A:Well, I guess we know so much about, like, PTSD and things now, but they wouldn't have.
Speaker B:No, exactly.
Speaker B:It just would have been.
Speaker B:You're lucky.
Speaker B:You're the lucky ones.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And probably quite stoic as well.
Speaker A:You know, just sort of, you know, put it behind you as well.
Speaker A:Yeah, you're right, actually, about the sort of popular culture, because, I mean, I saw something a while ago about an exhibition.
Speaker A:There was, like, a bit where you tried to sort of stay on the.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Deck as it's coming up, and I was like, odd.
Speaker A:That feels a bit.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:It's slightly in bad taste, I think, some of them.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But then afterwards, there's a.
Speaker A:There's a part where people put their hand into the water to feel the temperature.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And they're all really shocked.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:You can see it's just that really sort of sobering moment of, like.
Speaker B:Well, interestingly, they.
Speaker B:They think now that most of them didn't drown.
Speaker B:They died of the cold.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And the sad thing is that if they had picked them up, they could have been revived.
Speaker B:So most of them could have survived.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, it's terrible.
Speaker A:Okay, so it feels strange to sort of go moving on.
Speaker A:But we will.
Speaker A:So we have a listener question from my sister Lottie, who was actually the one who introduced me to your books.
Speaker A:And by that I mean she harassed me into picking it up.
Speaker A:She was like, you will love it.
Speaker A:You will love it.
Speaker A:You will love it.
Speaker A:And I finally did, and she was right.
Speaker A:So Lottie says she loves how in each of your books, you have focused on a very different time in history.
Speaker A:How do you decide which periods you want to focus on?
Speaker B:On.
Speaker A:And if it's not too cheeky, are you able to share plans for your next book?
Speaker B:Okay, well, how I decide, really.
Speaker B:So the first two were based on real characters.
Speaker B:So once I found them, I had to write about that period.
Speaker B:And actually, so the Smallest man, obviously set against the background of the English Civil War, which I did for A level history.
Speaker B:And I was.
Speaker B:I hated it.
Speaker B:It was so boring.
Speaker B:And at one point I thought, God, how on earth am I going to make the English Civil War interesting?
Speaker B:And I did toy with the idea of moving the whole idea to the Tudors, which everybody loves, but then I didn't.
Speaker B:So, yeah, the first two came from the character and then the period comes with them.
Speaker B:And the second one or the third one really was just trying to find a period or a historical event that everybody's interested in.
Speaker B:Because I wanted to.
Speaker B:I didn't get any foreign editions for my first two and I really wanted to do that because that's, you know, it's such fun to think for your books in different countries.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so that was partly why I chose the Titanic, because everybody knows about that.
Speaker B:And so now that book is published in America, it will be in France this year, in Poland next year, and hopefully some more.
Speaker B:So just for once, a plan worked.
Speaker B:And as for the next book, again, that was from a real life character.
Speaker B:So it's the story of the first English ladies football club in Victorian England.
Speaker A:Oh, wow.
Speaker B:Who were.
Speaker B:Who were founded or was founded by a lady called Nettie Honeyball.
Speaker B:But we know that Nettie Honeyball wasn't her real name and nobody knows who she really was.
Speaker B:There's been lots of attempts to find out who she was.
Speaker B:So my story gives Nettie Honeyball a backstory, which explains why she's using a different name and a sort of front story about how she.
Speaker B:What happens as a result of that.
Speaker B:So it's about.
Speaker B:It's about starting a football club, but it's about.
Speaker B:So there are three women, two women besides Nettie.
Speaker B:They are all, for various reasons, have never really had many friends and are also basically trapped by the patriarchy in different ways and have dealt with that in different ways.
Speaker B:And so it's how they come to become friends.
Speaker B:And they each help the other ones to deal with their situation at the same time as founding a football club against opposition from men and sabotage and eTrix, etc.
Speaker A:Love that.
Speaker A:Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited for that one.
Speaker A:Is that Victorian?
Speaker A:Did you say Victorian?
Speaker B: Yeah, it's late: Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So Victorian.
Speaker A:Bend it like Beckham.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:Yes, exactly.
Speaker B:I might put that on the top, on the front page.
Speaker A:That's so exciting.
Speaker A:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker A:Can't wait to read it.
Speaker A:I just want to go back to something you said about picking your periods of time.
Speaker A:And so I just think it's so interesting you're saying, like, when you were studying it, that you were.
Speaker A:Did you go on to do.
Speaker A:Because I hated history at school, which is so funny that I love historical fiction, but I often say I think it'd be a much better way to teach children to give them historical fiction because it's.
Speaker A:It's brought to life.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:My.
Speaker A:My daughter's just read a book recently, so she's 12, about Romania.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And she came and I was like, she's learned so much from this book that actually I had to go and Google because I was like, oh, I can't really remember what happened, but I was like, you've interested her in a subject that probably wouldn't have come onto her radar otherwise.
Speaker A:I was like, it's such a shame, isn't it?
Speaker A:Because some of the lessons are.
Speaker B:I mean, I think.
Speaker B:I think that's the thing with the English Civil War, the way they kind of have to teach it in school.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's unavoidably boring because it's all about the politics and the religion.
Speaker B:And it really came alive for me when I realized that.
Speaker B:That the queen was the key to quite a lot of it.
Speaker B:That, you know, she was Catholic.
Speaker B:The country did not want a Catholic queen.
Speaker B:They were very worried that she was going to turn the king.
Speaker B:And then when the personalities came into, sort of came alive for me.
Speaker B:But that's not what you get in school.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Yeah, so, no, it was.
Speaker B:I can't.
Speaker B:I couldn't believe when I realized I was going to have to revisit it because it was.
Speaker B:Spoiled me so much.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's so interesting because I often.
Speaker A:I mean, I sometimes think, oh, would I want to go and study it again?
Speaker A:Now?
Speaker A:I'm like, no, just give me a part of historical fiction.
Speaker A:Much happier.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Or a good historical biography can bring it alive in the same way.
Speaker A:I don't think I've tried a historical biography.
Speaker A:I'm trying to think of one.
Speaker A:I don't think I have.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:Yeah, they can.
Speaker B:I mean, it depends.
Speaker B:Some.
Speaker B:Some are a bit dry, but.
Speaker B:But if you get a good one, it does bring the whole era alive.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because again, it's about the people.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, there's so many fascinating stories, aren't there?
Speaker A:Like, actually, I'm gonna have to remind myself to talk to you afterwards about what you were saying about your next book.
Speaker A:Because I was like, there's something I want to tell you about.
Speaker A:I'll talk to you about it when we finish recording.
Speaker A:Because it's such a random tangent that people are like, what is she talking about?
Speaker A:So remind me.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Frances's new book, the Lost Passenger, is out now in hardback in America as well and Poland.
Speaker A:It is a brilliant read, so please do pick it up.
Speaker A:And if you haven't read her previous two as well, add those to the list because they are brilliant.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:So before we move on to talk about the books that have shaped your life, just to remind listeners that all the books that we're talking about will be listed in the show notes.
Speaker A:So nice and easy to find.
Speaker A:Okay, Frances, how did you find choosing your five?
Speaker A:We've actually, if we get time, we're going to have an online honorable mention.
Speaker A:Are we going to try and squeeze them?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:Was it easy for you?
Speaker B:Not really, because I read such a lot and also I have such a terrible memory for books because I.
Speaker B:Because I do read a lot.
Speaker B:So, I mean, if we go away for a fortnight and it's a fly and flop kind of holiday, I'll easily read like 18 books.
Speaker B:And by the end of it, they've all merged into one.
Speaker B:And I couldn't tell you which characters are in which one, but I've been immersed in them at the time.
Speaker B:So, yeah, it was quite difficult.
Speaker B:But it's a nice thing to revisit because books are quite special and, you know, they do remind you of certain times in your life.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Your list is so interesting.
Speaker A:I've read one.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:I'll be interested to see which one.
Speaker A:It's probably.
Speaker A:Probably the most obvious one for me.
Speaker A:So, yeah, let's get started.
Speaker A:Do you want to tell us about your first choice?
Speaker B:Okay, so I think my first choice was five.
Speaker B:Go Adventuring Again.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I was a massive reader from a very small child.
Speaker B:I could read.
Speaker B:I was horribly precocious.
Speaker B:I could read before I went to school.
Speaker B:My mum read to me when I was really tiny.
Speaker B:So I always love stories.
Speaker B:But the ones that I remember being really hooked on as a child were the Enid Blyton Famous Fives stories.
Speaker B:And I think they were what made me a book addict, really.
Speaker B:They were the first books that I couldn't wait to get back to, you know, would read at night with a torch under the bed clothes.
Speaker B:And I was always looking for mysteries to solve, like the Famous Five did.
Speaker B:I never found any, but I Think they.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:More than any other author.
Speaker B:Enid Blyton gave me my love of books.
Speaker B:And, you know, that's not just been a wonderful thing for me in my life.
Speaker B:That's the reason I write.
Speaker B:I think that's the reason most writers write.
Speaker B:If you've.
Speaker B:If you're someone who's got that immense pleasure from books, you want to see if you can give that to other people.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I know she was probably an awful person and her attitudes are dreadful, but she was a woman of her time and she could write a cracking story.
Speaker A:She is having a real moment on this season.
Speaker A:So she had never been picked before.
Speaker A:So even when I did these back on Instagram before the podcast, she was never pitched, and I was always really surprised.
Speaker A:This is the third time she's come up.
Speaker A:So we've had the whole Famous Five series, Mallory Towers, as well.
Speaker A:And I think you're right.
Speaker A:She just really shaped a lot of.
Speaker A:I mean, my sister and my brother and I, we had like a big sort of library of all her hardbacks, and just.
Speaker A:They were just such.
Speaker A:But as you say.
Speaker A:And it was that wanting to read more.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:She kept you turning the pages, and when you look at them now, you can't believe that because they really don't seem very good at all.
Speaker B:But, you know, you were young at the time and.
Speaker B:Yeah, I just absolutely loved them.
Speaker B:And I read the all, you know, the Mallory Towers and all the rest and all the other adventure ones, but the Famous five were closest to my heart.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And as I said, I mean, I was chatting to Fran Littlewood about this.
Speaker A:It's like they haven't held up.
Speaker A:My.
Speaker A:My kids weren't.
Speaker B:They wouldn't be interested.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So special to us.
Speaker A:And we will love them in our memory.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Okay, so let's move on to book number two.
Speaker A:Frances.
Speaker B:So book number two is Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse by Ursula Maury Williams, which is another children's book, and it's.
Speaker B:Oh, it's such a lovely story.
Speaker B:So the little wooden horse is a toy, and he lives with his toy.
Speaker B:I think he calls him his master, but he's the guy who made him.
Speaker B:And the toy maker falls on hard times.
Speaker B:So the little wooden horse says, I will go out into the world and I will make our fortune.
Speaker B:And he goes out into the world, and he.
Speaker B:Everywhere he goes, people are mean to him.
Speaker B:It's like, so.
Speaker B:So when you.
Speaker B:When you do writing courses, what they tell you to do is get your characters, put them up a tree and Throw rocks at them.
Speaker B:Well, she really throws some rocks at that poor little wooden horse.
Speaker B:And every time he turns the situation round because he has the purest, kindest heart and he turns the situation round and he makes nice people or bad people nice.
Speaker B:And he always comes out of it right.
Speaker B:And it was the first book that made me cry and taught me this is what a book can do.
Speaker B:A book doesn't just have you wanting to know what happens next.
Speaker B:A book can actually act on your emotions.
Speaker B:And that stayed with me and that is something I think about when I write.
Speaker B:I do think, what do I want the reader to be feeling at this point?
Speaker B:And I did, actually, when I was writing the Smallest Man, I went back to Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse to see how she had done that, how she had played on my emotions and made me really care about this little wooden horse.
Speaker B:Because I thought all from the beginning, if you don't care about Nat Davey by the second page, this is not the book for you.
Speaker B:So that was my challenge and that's remained my challenge, really.
Speaker B:If you don't care about the reader by the second or third page, you're probably not going to like the book.
Speaker B:So that's been, in terms of writing that's been quite a big influence on me.
Speaker A:That's amazing.
Speaker A:I looked at the COVID of this and I was thinking I had a vague sort of memory of it, but I don't remember it.
Speaker A:I was waiting to hear you talk about to see if it would trigger some more memories, but I don't remember.
Speaker A:I don't know if it's one that sort of.
Speaker A:But I love that that it's influenced like the Smallest man and things that it's.
Speaker A:We were talking about this at book club at our last one.
Speaker A:I was like, how amazing is it when you can pick up a book and it's like you can feel so much.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it's just words.
Speaker B:It's just words on the page.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I have read.
Speaker A:I mean, I've got to find like a really good feel good read next because I have just gone through like a few that have had me weeping recently.
Speaker A:But I love it.
Speaker A:I love it.
Speaker B:Have you read Swimming for Beginners?
Speaker A:No, I've got that on my shelf.
Speaker B:Read that.
Speaker B:That's a brilliant feel good read.
Speaker B:It may also make you cry in parts, but it's ultimately Feel Good Swimming for Beginners.
Speaker A:But that's the thing though.
Speaker A:I mean, I think some people say that to me as well.
Speaker A:Like, I don't want a sad read, but Sometimes, you know, to have the joy, you have to have this.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:You have to have light and shade.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Okay, so let's move on to your third book choice.
Speaker B:My third book choice is the Bomber by Lisa Markland.
Speaker B:This is a bit of a left field one.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So this was the first book that I read in Swedish.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, okay.
Speaker A:No, I wasn't.
Speaker B:So I always thought it would be amazing to become fluent in a second language, but I could never imagine how you would do it.
Speaker B:You know, there are so many words.
Speaker B:How would you ever learn enough of them to be able to really speak the language?
Speaker B:And then I don't know if you know, but a lot of people do know.
Speaker B:I'm a huge ABBA fan.
Speaker B:And as a result of being a huge ABBA fan, I always wanted to go to Sweden, did go to Sweden, fell in love with it and thought, okay, we're going to come back here often, I'm going to try and learn Swedish.
Speaker B:And I did.
Speaker B:And it was just.
Speaker B:That book was the turning point when I thought, no, actually I am making progress with this.
Speaker B:If I can read a whole novel, I would look up as few words as possible because it breaks the flow and it becomes a chore.
Speaker B:And I read it and the thing was, it was such a good book that it made me keep reading even when it was difficult.
Speaker B:It's a brilliant thriller and it was just a turning point for me because I thought, ok, yeah, if you keep going, you actually can do this.
Speaker B:And I have done it.
Speaker B:I mean, I still, you know, I could have this conversation in Swedish.
Speaker B:I would make, I'd make mistakes, but, you know, you would, you would understand me.
Speaker B:And it is, it is.
Speaker B:Well, you wouldn't know if you were Swedish.
Speaker B:You would.
Speaker B:But that is something I'm really proud of, that I set out to do it and I didn't think it was possible, but I have done it.
Speaker B:And again, that carries over into writing books.
Speaker B:You know, at, at the beginning everyone says, oh, it's so difficult to write a book.
Speaker B:It's so difficult to get a book published, so difficult to get an agent.
Speaker B:But the Swedish thing made me think, yeah, well, that was difficult and I did that and I'm just gonna stick at it.
Speaker B:I think there's a lot of qualities I lack, but I have got determination and that the Swedish was, was part of that.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So yeah, the Lisa Markland book was a.
Speaker B:Was a turning point for me in that way.
Speaker B:And I just recommend it as a book.
Speaker A:It's a brilliant thriller that is Amazing.
Speaker A:I think that is such a massive achievement.
Speaker A:I love that you set yourself a goal and stuck to it because is it quite a hard language as well?
Speaker B:I imagine it is in some ways.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So it shares a lot of words with English.
Speaker B:So it's.
Speaker B:In terms of.
Speaker B:If you were reading, you can, 8 times out of 10, guess what the word is.
Speaker B:But then, you know, it doesn't necessarily work when you're trying to speak.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:The grammar's not particularly difficult, the pronunciation is difficult.
Speaker B:Difficult.
Speaker B:It's very difficult to sound like a Swede.
Speaker B:You know, they have that sing song thing, which.
Speaker B:Very difficult to get.
Speaker B:But then I don't really.
Speaker B:I don't really mind that when I speak Swedish, I sound English or foreign because then people are curious and they say, oh, why did you learn Swedish?
Speaker B:And then you get a bit more practice.
Speaker B:But I had to steal because that, you know, they all speak such perfect English.
Speaker B:I had to steel myself to practice when we went there and I found it embarrassing, but I made myself do it because I wanted to do it so badly.
Speaker B:And I used to.
Speaker B:I used to carry a Swedish book if I was on a train in England because there's so many Swedes here.
Speaker B:If I heard Swedes talking, I would bring the book out and then they would say, oh, you're Swedish.
Speaker B:And then I could get a little bit of practice.
Speaker A:Oh, do you know, I'm going to tell my daughter because she is determined to learn Italian, so she's been doing duolingo and then she's sort of like really struggling, but I'm going to tell her actually.
Speaker B:It can be done, but, you know, it did take me a long time.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:And I think that's the first.
Speaker A:That's the first story like that we've heard on this side.
Speaker A:I can't think of anyone else reading a book in a different language.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So the book is called.
Speaker B:In Swedish, it's called Sprengeren.
Speaker A:Oh, that is amazing.
Speaker A:That is amazing.
Speaker A:I take my hat off to you because I.
Speaker A:Not good at sticking at things at all.
Speaker A:Okay, let's move on to talk about book number four, Francis.
Speaker B:So book number four, I think, is the Vizard Mask.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:By Diana Norman.
Speaker B:So she was.
Speaker B:Sadly, she's dead now, but she wrote historical fiction in the 80s and 90s, so really no Internet.
Speaker B:And her books are so amazing.
Speaker B:They're so incredibly well researched that you feel like you're there.
Speaker B:And she.
Speaker B:She does different periods.
Speaker B:So she does.
Speaker B: then they go right up to the: Speaker B:But a friend introduced me to them and said, I think you'd like these.
Speaker B:And I just.
Speaker B:I never really read historical fiction before because I thought it was quite dry and.
Speaker B:And sometimes it is.
Speaker B:And she writes.
Speaker B:There's always a bit of humor in there.
Speaker B:Like I say, she researches brilliantly so you feel like you're there, but she never hits you over the head with it.
Speaker B:You know, she doesn't do that thing of every time someone walks into a room, they describe the armchair.
Speaker B:I can't bear that.
Speaker B:And I don't do it either.
Speaker B:So she's been sort of the template for me that I.
Speaker B:When I write historical fiction, that's.
Speaker B:I want it to be like hers.
Speaker B:I want it to be, you know, to make you laugh a bit, not to be too heavy and not to hit you over the head with historical facts.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I've read all her books and I absolutely.
Speaker B:To anyone who.
Speaker B:Anyone who likes my books would like her books, I think.
Speaker A:Isn't that so interesting when I looked it up?
Speaker A:And I don't judge books by their cover.
Speaker B:Obviously the covers are not good, but.
Speaker B:But I think they're not in print anymore.
Speaker B:So they are from a long time ago.
Speaker B:They're not in print, but you can buy that.
Speaker B:You can get them secondhand.
Speaker B:And I think they.
Speaker B:Most of them are also on Kindle.
Speaker A:So they are available.
Speaker B:But the Vizard mask is my favorite.
Speaker B:But I.
Speaker B:I also really recommend the Morning Gift and Daughter of Lear, which is Lir.
Speaker B:They're her best ones, I think.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:I mean, isn't it so interesting you think these things, these all like little hidden treasures.
Speaker B:And I always feel a bit guilty recommending her books because I think ideally I recommend books by living authors who are going to benefit from it and she's not.
Speaker B:But I love the book so much that I just want everyone else to read them.
Speaker A:Oh, I love that.
Speaker A:Okay, well, Oshal, one day, give one a try.
Speaker A:Okay, we're going to move on to your fifth choice.
Speaker B:So my last one is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, which is a book about writing, but it's not about the craft of writing.
Speaker B:It's really about mental attitude, which makes it sound very heavy, but it's actually a really funny book and it's all about how insecure you can feel.
Speaker B:So she has this brilliant scene where she says happens every time she Sends in a book where she sends it off, and she thinks, I'm not going to worry about, you know, how long it takes them to get back to me.
Speaker B:And within 24 hours, she's going, I haven't heard anything.
Speaker B:They hate it.
Speaker B:And then she rings up her editor's assistant and she imagines the assistant saying to her editor, is Anne Lamott on the phone?
Speaker B:And the editor running to the accounts department going, for the love of God, stop that check.
Speaker B:Like, because the book is rubbish and they're not going to pay her.
Speaker B:And it is really.
Speaker B:I go back to it quite often when I'm feeling insecure, as we all do because she's a successful writer and she feels like that.
Speaker B:So it's a.
Speaker B:It's a nice thing to know.
Speaker B:It's for anyone who's trying to write, I'd recommend that book.
Speaker A:It's so important, though, as you say, like, I think we all do, like, imposter syndrome.
Speaker A:That made me laugh then, because I was thinking, I mean, obviously I'm not a writer, but I remember being invited.
Speaker A:I got an invite, something, and I was like, oh, they must have met a different Helen.
Speaker B:Exactly, Exactly.
Speaker B:We all think that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's so sad, isn't it?
Speaker A:We just don't sort of like, don't get it, but.
Speaker A:Oh, that sounds really interesting.
Speaker A:Okay, so, Francis, if you could only read one of those.
Speaker A:Oh, no, we're gonna do your honorable mention.
Speaker B:My honorable mention?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:My honorable mention is the Miseducation of Evie Epworth by Matt Smith, which I have read.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Which is a brilliant book.
Speaker A:Great.
Speaker B:But the reason it kind of means something to me is one of the really best things about getting published has been the friends that I've found.
Speaker B:Matt and Taylor is like, we talk on the phone for hours.
Speaker B:It's ridiculous.
Speaker B:We've done little bookshop tours together, but there are others as well.
Speaker B:So I was.
Speaker B:My debut came out in the plague year of the pandemic, and we had a little Facebook group of all the date we called ourselves Debut twenties.
Speaker B:All the people who were getting their first books out in the play gear.
Speaker B:And probably about 15 of us have stuck together.
Speaker B:We still do a Zoom every Friday.
Speaker B:Matson doesn't come on the Zoom, but he is part of the group.
Speaker B:And that has been such an amazing bonus.
Speaker B:You know, we all meet up now and then and it just makes what's quite a lonely job a lot less lonely.
Speaker B:And then some of them, you know, literally, if I was struggling with a scene today, people like Nicola Gill Or Charlotte Levin.
Speaker B:I just message them and say, can we do a quick brainstorm?
Speaker B:And they will.
Speaker B:So that.
Speaker B:That has been really beneficial.
Speaker B:And the miseducation of Evie Upworth is sort of symbolic of that for me.
Speaker A:Love that.
Speaker A:I mean, I always say books bring people together.
Speaker A:And I think when I'm sort of saying that, I'm thinking like readers and book clubs and, you know.
Speaker A:But I hear that a lot.
Speaker A:And I think it's so lovely that writers are.
Speaker A:Because it's a lonely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Job if you're sat there tapping away.
Speaker B:On your own made up people.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:So we're going to include that one in.
Speaker A:So if you could only read one of those books again, which one would you choose?
Speaker A:I'll let you have your six because I like you.
Speaker A:You're having an extra favorite.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:I think I would probably choose the Vizard Mask.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Because I have reread it several times, particularly when I was writing the Smallest man, just to remind myself of what I.
Speaker B:How I wanted to do it.
Speaker B:So yeah, I would probably pick that also.
Speaker B:It's really thick.
Speaker B:So if I was like on the desert island, it would give me plenty of reading.
Speaker B:It's like about 500 pages.
Speaker A:Oh, is it?
Speaker A:Oh, wow.
Speaker A:Frances, it has been amazing.
Speaker A:I have loved chatting to you.
Speaker A:Thank you so much.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:I know I end every episode saying how much I love that, but I do.
Speaker A:I really love chatting to authors.
Speaker A:And Frances was so wonderful, wasn't she?
Speaker A:So interesting and really inspiring.
Speaker A:Now I don't think I'll be reading novels in Swedish anytime soon, but maybe she'll inspire me to stick to things.
Speaker A:The Lost Passenger is out now and it is a truly wonderful read, so please do grab a copy.
Speaker A:And of course, if you haven't read Frances's other books, I really think you should treat yourself.
Speaker A:They are both wonderful.
Speaker A:I really hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I have.
Speaker A:I'll be back next week chatting to another author and I really hope that you'll join me for that episode too.
Speaker A:In the meantime, please help me spread the word about Best Book Forward.
Speaker A:If you could take the time to rate, review and subscribe, and most importantly, tell your friends about it, I would be so grateful.
Speaker A:It really does make a huge difference.
Speaker A:Thanks for listening and see you next week.
