Welcome to my website. It has been an exciting few months. To my great pleasure, The Bolter has struck a real chord with an American audience and has become a National Bestseller in the USA. It has also been listed as an O, OPRAH MAGAZINE TERRIFIC READ OF 2009, and was the SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE’s Best Book of the Year. Americans have also started to throw Bolter and Happy Valley parties and dinner parties – although I haven’t yet heard that these parties end as scandalously as Idina’s did... Anyhow, the US paperback edition is published by Vintage on May 4, 2010 and so fingers crossed for its success.
In the meantime, I am turning my hand to fiction. My first novel, Park Lane, will be published in the UK by Virago in Spring 2011. It tells the story of two young women through the First World War. One is the scion of a dying industrial dynasty living in a mansion on London’s Park Lane. The other works as a maid in the house. At first glance, their lives are parallel and far apart – but soon they start to centre around the same man.
As appalling as the First World War was, it was a time of great liberation for women. The novel starts in early 1914, a world where women had few choices. It ends after the War, during which many had left home unmarried to help the War Effort in England and France. Part of Park Lane is the woman’s journey from protesting Suffragettes to independence. You could almost say: Suffragettes to Flappers.
Thank you for visiting and please come back again to see what’s new.
Frances
