Elizabeth Macneal
@esmacneal
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Bestselling author of The Doll Factory and Circus of Wonders | Potter
London / Edinburgh
Joined September 2011
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Well I do not know what to do myself. I am so overwhelmed that I didn’t know how to express it yesterday. Booksellers and readers - you are my superheroes! I am full of gratitude, thank you 🖤💚🤍🎪
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I submitted my second novel to my editor (argh!), so I made a sea themed tea set to celebrate / distract myself (the mugs are sea urchins)
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Oh my god.
I’m holding a finished copy of my book.
10 years of setting my alarm for 5am. I’ve dreamed of this for so long.
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The Burial Plot wasn’t my only august delivery… this one thankfully lost the race and came a week after I submitted my final edits. She’s heavenly. Deluding myself that this means she will continue to show such respect to my writing career…
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Our tiny human has arrived so I may be off here for a bit. We are besotted. In related news, I’ll never liken the act of writing / publishing a book to childbirth again 😖
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I set up this scholarship for a writer who can’t otherwise afford the course - it covers the fees (£7k). UEA changed my life and I’m so grateful for the scholarship which enabled me to do it. Apply! I’m proud to name this scholarship after my grandparents, Enid and Arthur Bourne.
Treasured alumna Elizabeth Macneal (‘The Doll Factory’) graduated from UEA in 2017 and has now established The Bourne Scholarship for a writer to study on the Creative Writing MA. Applications for 2020 are now open:
Please share!
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For my birthday, my family asked Wainwright Bookbinding to make a hand-bound copy of The Doll Factory. Charlotte and I used to do markets together back when I flogged my ceramics on Brick Lane on weekends. Just look at what she made!
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I have seen book posters on the tube for years, and dreamed that one day something I wrote might be featured on them. This is CRAZY! If you see any out and about, please tag me so I can stare at my phone and feel joyous and confused and overwhelmed by it all 🙏
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I left my photocopier on and unattended for five minutes, then returned to a whirring sound.... and, well, my cat loves pressing buttons but this is a new low even for him
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I’ve been making some tiles to go around the bath, and I don’t want to wish the years away, but I can’t wait for Arthur to learn to read and hopefully become a fan of words too.
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Excited doesn’t cover it. I can’t wait to share
#CircusofWonders
in May next year (anxiously watching my letterbox for the proof to land!)
Set in a Victorian show, it’s about love and betrayal, fame and power, and one woman's determination to tell her own story 🎪
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Extremely gratified to the lady who threw a bottle of water over me when I slipped and was winded, because she thought I was dying. As if lying flailing on a canal towpath wasn’t humiliation enough. As I am British I then thanked her profusely, and limped home cold and soaking.
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MY BOOK IS IN A BOOKSHOP! So many years of writing and early starts and abandoned weekend plans, and here it is! The Doll Factory! In my hands! In a shop! And yes I bought a copy. As did everyone in my family (I will pretend they had a choice) 💙
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Absolutely elated (and a little bit stunned) that Circus of Wonders is number 4 in the Sunday Times Bestseller list! Booksellers and bloggers and readers - thank you so, so much. This is a dream come true 🌙 🎪
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I have probably never been prouder of anything in my whole life, and what’s more it is full of Guinness and comes with a new sister-in-law 🎂
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Because I love an extra teapot, I decided to make a circus tea set to remind me of this week, when my second novel was published. Alas, I didn’t get it glazed in time, but soon I’ll be knocking back the tea and cake 🎂 Each piece was inspired by a character or scene...
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@LauraSRobinson
Ha, so wise. And they aren’t fully pulled to the front - how can the man cope with them pushed in at different depths?! The jagged lines! Take a chainsaw to them all to level off the tops too! Send him to me, urgently, to complete his psychopath apprenticeship
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@LauraSRobinson
I’m sorry but ‘In pursuit of the proper sinner’ and the Harry Potter need to go to the charity shop. Purple in the green shelf, my god, and mixed-colour spines - he is a mere amateur in the psychopath field
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WHAAAAAAAAAT?!!!!! Oh my, I am off for a celebratory pastry or five!
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Phewwww. Edits done, so delighted / overwhelmed I even added an arbitrary ‘the end’. Is 12:56 too early for gin? I can’t wait to share this book when it’s ready.
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This is my new glaze and I like it. Plus I get to blow bubbles with a straw and feel like a child (and probably ingest toxic glaze but I am willing to suffer for my art 💪). These will be in my 9th Dec update if they haven’t found their way on to my cupboard shelves...
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Oh my heart. This is now my most treasured possession. A hand-coiled pot, made by my old tutor Andrew Cowan, with stamped lines from The Doll Factory. It took him hours. Just look at it! That cradle-able shape! The different clays like layers of rock! Thank you so much Andrew.
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It’s Circus of Wonders publication day today! When I was sitting at my desk, surrounded by books about spectacle and the circus, I never quite believed this day would arrive. And here it is, and for a book I am so proud of. There’s a massive grin hiding beneath my mask.
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I’ve got forty copies of my novel, The Doll Factory, to give away. If you are a librarian at a secondary state school, a prison, or at any charity, based in the UK, please just DM me your address and I’ll pop a free copy in the post. I’ll cover P&P.
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I share this not for sympathy but as a plea - please PLEASE wear a mask. Wear a mask even if you’re told it doesn’t matter. And vote them out. Furious at their recklessness and arrogance. Covid and its side effects hit my wee babe hard, but he is a strong little guy.
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It’s Doll Factory paperback publication day! Hard to believe how much has happened since last year. To celebrate, my husband baked it a Victorian pie, complete with marrow-bone chimney. Huge thanks to everyone who has picked up a copy, and met Iris and Albie and... Silas 💙
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So I have, as they say, some news!!!! I am beyond excited that The Doll Factory has been greenlit by
@paramountplus
. I can’t believe that the characters I worked on so quietly and hopefully are going to be fully brought to life on screen 🤯
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During all those days I spent wrestling my characters on to the page, I dreamed that one day that story might become a book. And here it is - huge grins all round! I’m so proud of it, and I can’t wait for you to meet Nell and Stella and Toby 🌙
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Yesterday my very first friend got married and it was lovely and I made her cake (I was introduced to her, aged ten minutes, on the antenatal ward).
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As it’s Circus of Wonders launch day (🥳), I thought I’d share a few photos of how I went about drawing the endpapers for the
@waterstones
special edition
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Bowled over to have been chosen for Waterstones’s March Book of the Month - will basically be camping out in Waterstones shops for the next month thanking all the booksellers for supporting it - thank you!
Announcing our Fiction Book of the Month for March:
@esmacneal
's darkly atmospheric Victorian London-set debut, The Doll Factory. Essential reading for all fans of The Miniaturist and The Binding. Find out more here:
#WBOTM
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Starting 2020 in the style in which I will no doubt continue it, by falling down a stalking rabbit-hole on Facebook, accidentally liking a photo of my old boss’s kids from 2016, and also tagging myself in it.
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Here it is - the final cover of
#thedollfactory
! It’s even more beautiful than I imagined - the design team bought a real bell jar, hired a lettering company, and filled it with illustrations, a handmade doll and paper flowers. I am OBSESSED! Thank you so much
@picadorbooks
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This day has felt so far off / impossible for so long but it’s Doll Factory PUBLICATION DAY! Iris, Silas & Albie are entering the world and I couldn’t be happier - even my manky potter’s nails are celebrating the occasion! TDF, wombat 🐻, mouse 🐀, butterfly 🦋, paint palette 🎨
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I’m in an uber and the driver is listening to Radio 4, and The Doll Factory is on, and I’m sitting very quietly in the back.
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I’ve just repainted my house and now realise I have matched my entire home to my book
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What an absolute honour to be on this shortlist, hurray!
That's the full list of six HWA Debut Crown shortlisted books. Congratulations to the authors and publishers! And thank you to the judges:
@Shotsblog
,
@thebooktrailer
and
@SavidgeReads
.
The Non-fiction Crown shortlist follows shortly
#HWACrowns2020
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I made this little teacup when I was writing my second novel - I can’t wait to share more about it this week 😁
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This is the vase I dropped when it was wet, and now I think I might engineer some more crumple accidents
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I’ve been bursting with this news for so long and the day is finally here - starting today at 12, The Doll Factory is going to be
@BBCRadio4
Book at Bedtime for the next fortnight! And read by
@louisebrealey
no less. I am so, so excited about it.
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To celebrate the launch of
#TheDollFactory
paperback, I’m running a competition to win 2 of my handmade mugs and a vase. To enter, just follow & RT.
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We are home from the hospital (hurray!!) and arrived to find this on the mat - the most beautiful piece of art by Tom de Freston. We are not worthy of his talents. It is exquisite. Now trying to decide the most prominent place to put it short of the front door, what a treasure.
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I made this dish for my engagement ring when I’m potting. My grandpa picked out this ring in a Swansea jewellers a few months after he met my grandma, when she was serving drinks at the local rugby club. My novel is for them and I wish they could have seen it.
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It's my birthday, I have an octopus and 5kg of mussels in my backpack, and I'm going to cook a feast for four fantastic women in my life. Happy.
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I have just updated my pottery shop. I’ve made lots of new work - pink-glazed mugs, little Mrs Dalloway vases (only for self-bought flowers of course), and even a pale (millennial?) pink colander.
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Back in my favourite place ever - the cottage in the Edinburgh botanics with a pine cone ceiling and shell walls.
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Of all the restoration work my dad has done (he’s an architect), this must be my all-time favourite 💓
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6 months later, look what I casually strolled past*
*gawped at, held up a corridor of impatient Londoners, then took an uncool number of selfies. Still surreal 😲
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It’s paperback publication day in the US 🎉 can’t wait to see one of these beauties IRL - I love this cover. It captures Iris and Silas perfectly, and the sense of the abject and the beautiful. Let me know if you see one in bookshops and I can live vicariously.
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My dad is in Santiago airport and just sat opposite a stranger reading my book, what is this life
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A review for The Doll Factory was just published in the
@nytimes
. I’ve spent a lot of doubt-filled years writing, and I dreamed of many things, but truly this is beyond it.
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During the many quiet years I spent writing, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine news like this. I am stunned and grateful. Thank you to everyone who has supported The Doll Factory - readers, booksellers, reviewers, Picador and publishing people 🙏🙏🙏
As of this week, 10,000 readers are now in possession of a beautiful hardback copy of
@esmacneal
's
#TheDollFactory
! Let us know what you thought of this chilling tale of love, art and obsession below 👇
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Yesterday I signed a small tower of tip ins for Circus of Wonders and it all felt a bit more real 😁 These signed pages are bound into special editions - there’s the indie bookshops numbered edition (contact your local) & the Waterstones (with prize draw!)
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It’s launch week! And to celebrate, I’ve filmed a wee video of the
@waterstones
edition of my book... getting naked 😳 but look at the foiling! The patterns! He can’t stay hidden away.
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Some news! The construction of a grand Victorian cemetery, trick plots, manipulation, unexpected love… I couldn’t be happier that
@picadorbooks
will be publishing my third novel, The Burial Plot, next summer
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🥁🎺pottery shop update🎺🥁
I am so proud of this wave of pots. Pint mugs, mrs Dalloway vases, bluets mugs, and even a Sylvia Plath incense holder! I really hope you find something you like xx
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If you’re an aspiring writer and would like to win a week’s stay in a holiday cottage, all you need to do is tweet a summary of your idea with the hashtag
#WriTweet
- I’m judging the most intriguing pitch.
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I’ve just found my dissertation from 2 years ago, and I still can’t believe it’s now real. I particularly enjoy that the marker used it as a coaster. Multi-purpose novel 👌
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I’m so happy to be in the Sunday Times top five bestsellers for the fourth week. Huge thank you to everyone who has supported The Doll Factory 💙
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Oh MY! My heart is full. Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed, tweeted, talked about, and bought copies of The Doll Factory. Dreams exploding about me right now.
Elizabeth Macneal's historical debut The Doll Factory has jumped into the forthcoming Sunday Times fiction bestsellers at No 6.
Here's Nick Rennison's admiring review - I'd like to say the first, but prob "one of" - from a couple of weeks ago
@esmacneal
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Delighted to announce we are expecting Pac-Man in a few weeks
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I’m an aunt! And to celebrate I decided to wildly overestimate my knitting abilities (achievements to date: rectangles aka scarves) and give my niece nightmares for the rest of her life. There’s definitely a novel-in-head and first draft parallel here. On the left, my inspiration
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After my cats permanently deleted 10,000 words by dancing on my keyboard, my husband has made this invention. Do your worst, novel destroyer.
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Today I was so excited that Circus of Wonders was 4th in the
@thesundaytimes
bestseller list that I decided Nell deserved her very own Victoria sandwich on the cake stand I made her 🍰 thank you to everyone who has picked up a copy! I am so happy and grateful.
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I had a completely lovely evening last night meeting bookish people and talking about The Burial Plot. I held a proof of my book in my hands! I escaped the baby for the first time in three months! Joy.
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My mum: I thought you said the sprayed edge edition of your book was in short supply? Well don’t worry, I found a copy in a charity shop for 50p, which I bought and gave to Linda.
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Turns out I am not a human but a 94,147-9 word writing machine. Here are the word counts of The Doll Factory and Book 2 🤖
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Look at the little hedgehog who just sauntered into my brother’s house 🦔
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Somehow it’s been six weeks since The Doll Factory was published (?!!). And in that time, I’ve often been asked about the incredible cover, and whether I designed it. The short answer is it’s all the work of
@panmacartdept
, but I thought I’d share a bit about how it came about.
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ARGH, the final cover is here! To say I love it is an understatement. Nell on a trapeze - but how far is she exploited with her trapeze as a puppet's strings? The enchanting but also overwhelming spinning circus. The vines, birds and snakes whose meaning later becomes apparent...
Drumroll, please! Behold this beautiful cover for
@esmacneal
's astonishing new novel CIRCUS OF WONDERS. Fans of THE DOLL FACTORY, form an orderly queue - you can pre-order your copy at
@Waterstones
now:
🎨 Cover design: Katie Tooke
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I’m going to take a twitter break so I can concentrate on my second novel. Thanks so much to everyone who has supported me and The Doll Factory and my pots - it means so much. I’ll still be on Instagram (
@elizabethmacneal
) and checking back every so often for
#WriTweet
entries.
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When I found out The Doll Factory would be published, my mum sent me some iris bulbs (the name of my protagonist). Here they are, planted next to my rose, flowering for the second time.
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Well if this isn’t the most surreal, wonderful thing ever - the trailer of The Doll Factory is here! The series launches 1st December, and it is 🔥🔥🔥!
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Here’s a video I made of me drawing the endpapers for The Doll Factory (feat. Claude, who decided to put aside his paper-chewing habits for one afternoon), irises intertwined with roses. These are the endpapers for the Waterstones special edition 🌹
Not many authors can create their own special edition endpapers but then
@esmacneal
is not most authors. Enjoy this mesmerising video and then treat yourself to one of our favourite books of 2019:
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Just seeing this map estimating the route Sarah Everard was taking based on sightings has devastated me. She took a longer route to be safer on main roads. Just a small calculation that women make every day to try and be safe. She was just trying to get home.
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I think 8 year old me would have been quite weepy to see the Waterstones window on Trafalgar Square 24 years on (though perhaps a little disappointed by the lack of clashing pinks and maroon knee-highs - it was the age of Clueless, what can I say?). What a display!!!
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It might have taken me approximately ten billion hours (I started it in August and often wondered if I would finish it when my son is in his forties), but I have finally finished embroidering and sewing Arthur’s stocking! Behold the snow angels!
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Because apparently making book forts aren’t celebration enough for US publication day, my siblings took me out for dinner at a restaurant next to a Colville Place, where my character Louis lives 💙
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Times right now are so difficult and worrying and strange. I am forever grateful to everyone who has bought my book, supporting both me and the shops where it is for sale. Thank you. 🙏🙏
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Absolutely unreal - Circus of Wonders opens with ‘an advertisement, nailed to an oak tree’, and here is the poster itself! To have my novel brought to life like this is a real pinch-me moment 1/2
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ARGH my words have a seriously fancy new cover! Mega thanks to Katie Cooke, cover designer twice over, and all the authors and reviewers whose generous responses are on the double cover (!!!)
Would you care to feast your 👀 on this *stunning* paperback edition of
@esmacneal
’s dazzling debut
#TheDollFactory
; you can get your hands on it from 5th March. What an absolute 🌟 Elizabeth is; we at
@picadorbooks
are so proud to publish her.
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Today is an excellent day - The Doll Factory is being published in the US & Canada! I am celebrating by building a book fort (look at all those handsome books!) 🤓 🥂 anyone for book jenga?
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Last night was a seriously pinch me moment - attending the screening of The Doll Factory. I’m in total awe of the talents of the cast and crew who made this thing, in all its beauty and darkness. It’s out now on Paramount+ and I LOVE IT.
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For the last week, I’ve been writing in Jane Austen cellar, of all mad places. Thanks to
@LiteraryElf
who tipped me off about this amazing rental.
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Last night’s vigil was peaceful and moving. We came with candles and flowers, to recognise Sarah Everard’s life and every woman whose life has been affected by male violence. Then the police bowled in.
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Oh my GOODNESS my cup runneth over (I will be punished by my hangover tomorrow), but
@thetimes
has named
#TheDollFactory
‘book of the month’ and calls it ‘remarkably strong... clever and readable... wonderful, descriptive prose.’ Thank you Antonia Senior!
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