Today I had the pleasure to go to a talk with Lucy Ribchester, the author of The Hourglass Factory in Waterstone's Covent Garden.
I had never heard of Lucy before, but read the summary of her book on Goodreads and was immediately intrigued with the story. It takes place in 1912 London and combines suffragettes, circus artists and corsets in one story - what's not to love about it? (As you all know, I have a weakness for suffragettes so I was easily convinced to go)
The talk started off with Lucy reading the prologue of her story, which I always enjoy. I love hearing the writer do the voices they imagine their characters to have. As you can see from the picture, Lucy was a pro and her Northern accent only made the reading better!
Then it was time for the real talk and it was pretty amazing. There was discussion about historical fiction (Lucy thinks genres are useful but historical fiction is too broad to say all books are bad or good), her love for London and the crazy amount of research she did for this book - like binders of stuff! Lucy is one organized writer!
Then the discussion moved on to the suffragette movement and my favourite quote of the evening was uttered here by Lucy. She said that though she loved that the suffragette movement was successful, she doesn't agree with everything they did. She even questioned if the fact that the suffragettes never hurt someone who wasn't part of their movement (something they're always praised for) was due to luck or design. It might be controversial, but I think that's an excellent question/way of looking at the movement!
Though there was a lot more said, the main focusses were Lucy's love for Miss Marple (there was even some talk about Marple fan fiction at some point) and Angela Carter.
I never heard of Lucy, who is also by the way a Costa Shortlisted Short Story author (no big deal), but I am so happy I got my hand on her book AND got it signed. It sounds amazing and I can't wait to read it and fully explore 1912 London!
