Kate Lord Brown on The Silver Thread

In this final episode of Season 5, I’m joined by bestselling author Kate Lord Brown to talk about her beautiful new novel, The Silver Thread. We discuss Kate’s love of uncovering forgotten histories, the real-life inspirations behind the novel, and how Liberty London became an unexpected doorway into the past.

Of course, no episode of Best Book Forward is complete without book recommendations. Here are the books that have shaped Kate. You’ll find links to buy below:

Books by Kate:

The Silver Thread

The Golden Hour

A Summer at the Castle

A Season of Secrets

Kate’s Book Choices:

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido

Heartburn by Nora Ephron

Light Years by James Salter

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Other Books Mentioned:

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce

Season 6 is coming really soon and I cannot wait to tell you what I’ve been working on. But first a huge thanks to my guests who have been:

Julie Owen Moylan

Lucy Apps

Sarah Vaughan

Heidi Swain

Ilona Bannister

Andrea Mara

Lucy Ashe

and Kate Lord Brown

In the meantime, if you’ve enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate and review Best Book Forward, and don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps new listeners discover the show.

See you soon, and happy listening.

Listen & Subscribe Now:

https://best-book-forward.captivate.fm/listen

To stay in touch with Best Book Forward news please follow me on Instagram @bestbookforward or visit my website: https://bestbookforward.org/

Welcome back to Best Book Forward and the final episode in the season.

I don't know where those eight weeks have gone.

They have just flown by.

But I really hope that you've enjoyed all the booker's chat.

And the good news is I'm currently working on season six, which will be coming very soon, so you won't have to wait too long.

And of course, we've got a brilliant episode ahead of us today.

So joining me today for the final episode of season five is Kate Lord Brown.

Kate is the author of five historical fiction books that take readers to Egypt, London, Spain, France and Japan.

Her latest novel, the Silver Thread, is out today and is an epic tale of two women in three cities and spans 100 years.

The silver Thread is a beautifully evocative historical romance that crosses oceans and cultures and looks at the moments that time people together forever.

So let's not waste any time.

Let's get straight into it and give Kate a warm welcome to the show.

Kate, welcome.

And thank you so much for joining me on Best Book Forward today.

Hi, Helen.

It's lovely to be here.

I remember chatting to you for our book club when we got together when we read the Golden Hour.

Yes, that's right.

It feels like a long time ago, but I know only last year, I think.

I can't remember exactly when we did it, but I remember you then telling us about your new novel, the Silver Thread.

And this episode goes out the Silver Thread will be out in the world.

So you can get very exciting your copy.

I love the COVID as well.

You always have nice covers, don't you?

Oh, I think the, the publishers, Simon and Schuster, have done a really lovely job.

I think that, you know, the colors in it are very enticing.

Yeah, they look beautiful together, actually, don't they?

Anyway, sorry, let's, let's not judge books by the COVID Well, we all do.

Okay, so would you like to start off by giving listeners an idea of what they can expect when they pick up the Silver Thread?

Absolutely.

Well, I think, as you know from Goldener, I love writing these kind of epic and intimate stories that really sweep across history in dual or even triple timelines.

And Silver Fred's no difference.

It's three cities, Two women, and a hundred years.

So it takes you from London to Paris to Tokyo, which is a new destination for me.

But it's a part of the world that I really love.

So I very, very much enjoyed writing about Japan.

And so, I mean, it's brilliant.

And I loved reading about J. Japan as well.

We're going to dive in to the characters and the plot a little bit more.

But let's go back to the beginning and without being like trying to have a pun, where was the first thread?

Where was the first sort of idea from the Silver Thread?

Where did that come from, the first thread?

Well, it was very character driven, really.

The beginning of the story starts with the early days of Liberty establishing itself in London and that real craze for everything that was Oriental and Japanese.

And I started diving into the archives in Westminster, which was, you know, a great privilege going through all of the old papers.

And it was amazing to find out that Liberty started with three people working for him, one of whom was a young Japanese boy who's got sort of various names as you go through all the paperwork, all of which are wrong.

When I spoke to a Japanese friend, he said that, you know, it just wasn't a Japanese name that had been recorded.

So I rechristened him Hero.

And he is really the.

The hero of the story.

This sort of.

It's an east west love story about enduring love and these relationships that really sort of tie people together through a lifetime.

Oh, that's amazing.

So we're going to come on, we'll talk about the characters and we're going to talk about your research as well a little bit later.

I'm going to go straight to the back of the book, though, and talk about your author's note where you talk about seeing some of Monet's work 20 years ago and how at that time you knew that you wanted to write a story around this.

Sorry, excuse me.

I'd love for you to take us back to that moment when you're sitting, standing there looking at this art.

You know, how much of the silver thread came to you.

What were you sort of feeling?

Absolutely.

Well, I mean, I studied art history at university, so at the Courtauld Institute, it's.

We learned an awful lot about the Impressionists.

And I've always really loved Monet's paintings of the water lilies.

So 20 years ago we were living down in the sort of south of Spain, so we were driving through France and stopped off at Giveny to see the gardens.

And we kind of.

We got there really early because we wanted to get in ahead of all of the massacre.

And we were the first people into the garden.

And it was so peaceful and beautiful with this sort of mistake on the water lilies.

And I was just really captivated by the place.

And the house is so welcoming.

These beautiful.

There's a yellow room And a turquoise room, you know, it's just somewhere that you.

I wanted to write a story set there, at least partly set there.

So that was the link with the painting, really.

That's amazing.

I've never been.

But, you know when you just said that about getting there early to yourself, it's such a.

Because you know how you see things on Instagram and it's like all.

And then you turn up and it's just like loads and loads of people there.

But to have that moment yourself is really special.

Thank you.

I ever go.

I have to get everyone up super early, so.

Recommend it.

Yeah.

Okay.

So obviously the timing for the silver thread coming out is perfect.

Well done.

Yeah.

So when you had that moment, then to sort of decide to write this story, how once you decided to get going and this is the right time, how easy was it for you to pull the story?

Did you already know who was in it, where you were taking us, and how much time you were going to bring us across?

I think.

I mean, it's.

It's a very complex story.

I think because you are covering.

You can hear tapping in the background.

I'm sorry, that's Roger.

He's wandering around my dog, so he'll.

Tippy tappy toes, tippy tapping.

He's just had a haircut, so his.

His little claws are a bit sharp at the moment.

But anyway, we'll ignore Roger.

So it's.

It's a very complex story.

I think it brings together the three locations and also 100 years in terms of history.

But I knew that I wanted to start with this girl.

I was doing research in London, thinking about the liberty end of the story.

And I've got an A to Z, like a Victorian A to Z.

So I was walking around in Kensington, seeing how the layout had changed and what was different and the road names that were different.

And I was in the middle of Kynance Mews, which is this really lovely old sort of cobbled street.

It's very picturesque, you know, full of flowers and it's.

It's, you know, just like an archetypal London muse house.

And I thought, okay, I can see this girl.

And I had this sudden picture of a very petite girl.

Who was obviously a bit down at heel.

Her coat was quite shabby, but there was this amazing green trim to it.

So I knew that she was a seamstress of some sort because she, you know, I had this picture of somebody a bit like Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink.

That sort of wonderful scene where she's sort of pulling together this incredible outfit out of thin air, basically.

So I knew that was Belle.

That was the start of the story.

And then on the flip side, I had this sense of a more modern character uncovering her apartment in Paris, which had been closed for decades after Belle's disappearance.

So I had the beginning and I had the end, and then it was just figuring out how this sort of story weaves together.

Okay, I love that.

To me, it's absolutely fascinating that you.

I mean, I love the idea of you walking around London with Victorian A to Z. I think it's a really interesting thing for anyone to do.

I wish I lived in London.

Yeah, I bet.

But then to actually see this character and then start pulling the pieces like from a painting you'd seen 20 years before, Liberty and all this.

I think it's absolutely fascinating.

Is that how it always sorts of comes to you for your books?

Like, is there always a character first or do you decide the places?

How do you.

It's.

It's almost.

I mean, it's quite hard to.

And it sounds a bit bonkers when you start describing it, but it's.

It's almost like having a radio playing in the room next door so you can hear this.

This.

The sort of characters in the story warming up, and it's slightly out of tune or out of focus, and, you know, it's a bit crackly and there's interference.

And as you start to think about the story and give these people your attention, it's like everything comes into Technicolor.

And for me, I write quite visually, so it's almost like transcribing an image or a movie that you can see in your mind.

And I tend to.

I gather a lot of stuff on Pinterest boards as well.

So a lot of the research that I do is visual, so that when you sit down to write, you've got this sort of wonderful archive of images to bounce off and really, you know, inspire you as you go along.

So it's a bit like being a magpie.

You know, Virginia Woolf called them diamonds in the dust heap.

You sort of get these really gorgeous forgotten bits of history and little facts and pull together things that people won't have Found in, you know, some sort of arcane archive somewhere.

And then, you know, you bring it all together and bring it all back to life.

So it's a lot of fun.

This sounds amazing.

I mean, I always say this to have the opportunity to see inside an author's mind because you all have such different ways.

Some people will say, like, you know, a character comes marching in, or they'll start setting.

It's so interesting to me how it's just the wonder of creativity, isn't it?

How it's like, you know, there's whatever works for the individual works and.

Yeah, and everybody's so different.

You know, I love reading, reading books about writing and finding out about other people's process because, you know, it is such an interesting thing.

It really is.

I mean, it fascinates me.

And I just always think I missed the upgrade.

I'm like, why didn't I get that bit?

Okay, let's talk about Belle, then.

Because I absolutely loved her.

I thought she was such an interesting character.

Really admired her as well.

So she is also somebody who is, you know, full of creativity.

I found her quite courageous as well.

And she's a woman at an interesting time in history as well.

So with the sort of, you know, absolutely quite more modern and, you know, what she's able to do.

So could you talk to us about a little bit more about Belle, what she's like and what her journey is, obviously without spoilers.

Well, it's precisely that I think it's just such an interesting point in time.

Sort of end of the 19th, going through to the 20th century, and it's really the birth of the new woman.

So you have things like the suffragettes and that incredible political force driving women's lives forward.

And I wanted somebody who would reflect that, who came from a very privileged background who's fallen on hard times.

So she has to make her own way in the world and really rely on her intelligence, her wit, her charm and her skill.

You know, I knew that she was going to be a designer in her own rights.

Although she starts working with Liberty, you.

You follow the trajectory of her career into Paris and setting up her own fashion house.

You know, the research for all of that was just absolutely glorious.

Lots of time in fashion museums and leafing through huge books on, you know, designs at the time, I absolutely loved it.

Amazing.

So thinking about designs of the time and Belle, I mean, she's her own person, but is.

Does she sort of draw from anyone in history or is she completely.

Or lots of.

Or she completely.

Her Own.

She's.

She's completely my own.

I tried not to draw from one designer too much.

I mean, there are obvious parallels with somebody like Coco Chanel, who has a bit part in the book.

You know, there's a party in the south of France and Chanel is there as a friend because she's neighbours with Colette.

And, you know, it's that I loved that whole sort of pre war or interwar period, really down in the south of France with these incredibly creative people.

And I think.

I mean, Chanel's story, the way that she invented herself and created this incredible house from scratch was.

Is just so inspiring and extraordinary.

So I wanted Belle to be of that ilk, but her own woman and her, you know, in her own self.

So when you were writing Belle, did she ever surprise you as you were writing or did you know exactly where she was going?

Yeah, she did.

She did surprise me, actually.

I.

She started off, I suppose, as a more traditional character and I hadn't expected her to have this kind of glorious late life blossoming.

You know, she had a.

There's a relationship early on in the book, but then there's this also rather lovely, you know, sort of lost couple of summers with this beautiful romance that came out nowhere.

So I really.

I wasn't expecting that for her at all.

But it seemed to work very nicely with her trajectory and her.

Her love story.

It's.

I love.

I loved her story.

She's brilliant.

Okay.

So when she starts at Liberty, she meets one of the designers, who is this young Japanese man who you mentioned earlier called Hiro.

In your author's note again, you talked about finding that there was this young Japanese man, his name was wrong.

Do you think they just didn't know how to spell it or was it just.

I imagine so, you know, if somebody's sort of, you know, passed a name down verbally, so you would probably be spelling it phonetically or.

But anyway, I did, I checked.

I double checked with a Japanese friend and it was definitely incorrect.

So.

So we rechristened him.

It's kind of sad though, for him then.

He's sort of lost in his.

I mean, he's got his, like, place in there, but he's actually lost in history, in time.

Lost in time.

Yep.

Anyway, sorry, that was a bit of a random tangent.

When you find this sort of nugget, then this real person, you want to bring him into a novel because he is a really important part in Belle's story.

How do you go about then, sort of blending fact and fiction?

I think writing historical fiction, I'm always, you know, for me, it's story first.

I want the history, I want all the facts to be correct and to give the readers just enough so that they get a real flavour of the world.

But you're not bombarding them with, you know, text in the same way that you would if you were writing a straight history.

So it's got to be story first.

So I'm always looking for those people at the sort of back of a photograph who aren't named or, you know, that.

That sort of sense of, you know.

And then somebody else was working with him, but again, not named.

So you're looking for these sort of spaces in history where you can drop people in.

I love that.

That's so.

So interesting how you've done it.

And his story, as I say, is so important to tell.

And obviously they're so different, like, culturally.

I can't even say it.

Sorry.

Culturally, very different.

So there's this lovely scene where Belle goes with Hero to meet his sister.

They have tea together, just.

It's so beautifully captured as well.

Writing those different cultures at the time that they're set in, was that quite difficult or.

Yeah, because, I mean, again, you.

You know, you're piecing together fragments, basically.

I knew that there was this guy called Tanika who created Japanese villages in some of the parks in London.

And it was really a. I suppose it was because there was such an interest in the Orient, but a lot of people weren't able to travel.

It was a way to go and experience, you know, the fashion and the culture and the entertainment and sumo wrestling and all of this sort of thing.

And I was just thinking, well, you know, these people were here for months on end.

What was their life?

You know, what was their family life like?

Did they bring brothers and sisters with them?

Did they bring children?

So I started looking into where Japanese people had settled in London at that time and started thinking about, okay, so what would.

What would it be like for somebody from Belle's background?

So, you know, very sheltered.

You've grown up in Kensington to set off to Alipalli and go and have tea with this lovely couple of, you know, Japanese colleagues.

And that.

That sort of.

That was the beginning of their story.

I was, you know, I was imagining how somebody like Belle would react to that experience and that sort of merging of cultures as a friendship starts to grow.

That's something I really loved about her, actually, as well.

Because I think even now, if you were going somewhere that was unfamiliar, it'd be Sort of nerve wracking.

But she.

She embraces life in so many ways, doesn't she?

And her friendship with hero and his sister and.

Yeah, I loved that.

I loved those scenes.

So that's in the past timeline.

So then in the present day, we have a character called Mira, who again, I loved.

I found her really interesting.

I loved her job.

So she is a woman who has a real fascination with Belle.

And she gets the opportunity to go to Belle's Paris apartment, which has been locked up, and go through all her belongings or bits and pieces, which I just thought, oh, be so exciting.

So could you tell us a little bit about Mira and where she came from as well?

Well, Mira was very much based on my day job.

So after studying art history, I worked as an art consultant for a long time.

And part of that involved going to Paris to buy things at auction for clients.

So either at the auction houses or if there were estate sales.

And as you say, I mean, it was just glorious.

You get to experience somebody's life in miniature and you had the privilege of going in and.

And seeing how people lived, you know, so bits of mirror are very much from my own experience.

There was also an incredible apartment that was uncovered about 10 years ago, and it belonged to a Belle Epoque courtesan.

And there's this incredible portrait by Baldini of her in a sort of very revealing dress and, you know, stuffed ostriches and all of this sort of bella pot grandeur.

And I tucked that away at the back of my mind.

I just thought, wow, that would be a really, really lovely thing to do in a story.

And then an American writer came along and wrote a book called, I think something like, you know, the Apartment or the Paris Apartment.

So I thought, okay, can't write about that one.

You know, let's do something along those lines.

But I changed it up for Belle because I wanted her to be a new woman.

So although she's from the Belle Epoque, she's constantly evolving and becoming this modern woman at the beginning of the 20th century.

So hopefully that's all reflected in the research that I did for Belle's apartment and the furniture that you find there and all the secrets that Mira starts uncovering.

I love that.

I mean, I love both timelines, but those parts where she goes in, it probably says, I'm really nosy.

I was like, that's just fascinating, isn't it?

It is fascinating.

And I always think my sister, she.

She does an antiques.

I was like, that would be her dream.

I was just thinking when you said earlier about being a bit of a magpie and then this is your job.

So when you were going into estate sales, were you sort of.

Were there things that you were picking up and thinking, oh, that's a great bit for a novel to come later.

So.

So, yeah, very much so.

You know, it's.

I think people's lives are endlessly fascinating and there's just, you know, we are magpies, and you pick up these lovely ideas and they.

They.

You know, when you're starting to sit down and write a novel, very often I'll go through those files and something will chime.

So little fragments start coalescing and coming together for the story.

I just love that.

I absolutely love that.

That's just fascinating to me.

Okay, we have to talk a little bit about Liberty.

So I was thinking, for anyone who isn't familiar with London, Liberty is the most beautiful department store with this incredible history, which actually I knew very little about until I started to read the Silver Thread.

So you talked about how it was started by.

Was it Arthur Liberty?

Yeah, Arthur Lazenby, Liberty, and just a.

Very small team, which is incredible.

I know that you spent time in the Liberty archive as well, so I'd just be fascinated to hear a little bit about what you learned about Liberty.

What drew you to it in the first place as well, for the story?

Well, I love uncovering bits of forgotten history, and it's just such a privilege when you're going through all these original documents with lovely sort of old type, typewritten pages and, you know, sketches for the new building when it was being built on Regent Street.

And it's.

It's all the little bits that are behind the scenes.

You know, I found out, going through all the different documents, that he'd started with three people, and I think one of them was working for free because he couldn't afford to pay his staff to begin with, because he was literally, he was, you know, an entrepreneur.

He was starting out.

He'd worked for a big sort of Oriental warehouse just down the road in Regent Street.

But at the beginning, he really started from nothing and people wanted to work with him because I think he was so visionary and charismatic that people came with him from his old job and worked for free.

So I Thought, okay, there's space for Belle.

We can drop her in here because she's got great taste.

You know, her father was an artist.

She.

She's part of these circles.

So she could be there helping the women choose the fabrics for their dresses or the silks or.

So it was.

It was really dropping her into that.

You know, I love Liberty, and I think it was one of the first places that I went to when I moved to London.

And they had a Japanese supermarket in the bottom of Liberty for a little bit, sort of in the late 80s, early 90s.

And that was the first time that I'd really come across Japanese ceramics as well.

So I think this story has really been percolating away ever since then.

I love that it has sort of taken from lots of.

It's like you looking through your files, isn't it, for the story?

It's come from as far back as 20 years ago looking at a painting to, you know, 80s shopping in Liberty.

That's amazing.

So when you were in the archives for Liberty then and going through everything, did you discover anything that you thought that's going to change the story or it has to go in?

Like, what did you.

It was.

And it turns out that Mrs. Liberty was a photographer, so she carted all this kind of photographic equipment and then published a book later on of the trip.

And I managed to get hold of a facsimile of this incredibly rare old book, which was amazing because then know, I was looking at where they traveled in Japan and who they traveled with, and I thought, oh, okay, I'm going to squeeze Belle.

Belle can go on this journey and, you know, we'll bring hero as well, because, you know, why not?

And I've, I've, you know, it's exactly that sort of looking at the photographs and thinking, okay, who's in the background?

Where can we squeeze these people in?

So that was really, you know, that was lovely because I think that gave me permission to take the story to Tokyo, Japan, which is, you know, I don't know if you've had the chance to travel there, but it's the most extraordinary place.

I haven't been to Japan.

I would absolutely love to go one day.

My son is really into Japanese manga books at the moment as well, so he's desperate to go.

So hopefully one day soon we'll be there.

I love the idea of her pictures that you had those pictures do you work from like a. I mean, I know you said you're very visual, but do you actually have them out in front of you when you're working to look at?

I do, just.

You do?

Yeah, very much so.

I mean, it's.

I know I start work with a really clear desk and I'm very disciplined and honest and by the end of writing a novel, the library upstairs is like an explosion in, you know, it's got all sorts.

There's fans, there's kimonos, there's photographs of Japan.

There's, you know, I still pin stuff up because I like.

As much as I use Pinterest and have different boards for different stories, I like having visual stuff in front of me.

So it's almost like nesting.

It's like you create this little world that you go into every day and it's, you know, you just get completely lost in the story out there.

I love that.

And in those photos, then they went on this trip, was our Japanese boy in those pictures or not?

Oh, that's so lovely.

So, you know, you're.

You're looking at the figures and, you know, they're quite sort of green.

I think she was working with Alberman Prints, so they're, they're very sort of silvery and a very evocative landscapes.

But yeah, you know, I was there with a magnifying glass sort of looking and thinking, okay, right, that can be you there.

I love that.

Okay, so as you said, the silver thread is told in different timelines.

It's something you do really well.

You've done it before in the golden hour.

I actually haven't read any of your other books yet.

I've got them to look forward to.

It's so satisfying as a reader when you're reading a book that's told in different timelines and you start to see them weaving together just beautifully, like they're sort of secrets coming together for us.

How difficult is that for you to plan?

Do you know it all from the start, how you're going to do it, or is it a surprise to you as well?

It's a surprise to me.

I mean, I just, you know, I love.

As we were saying about the research, I think that's.

It's like sculpture, you know, that's the sort of the form of the story.

So you've got these certain facts that you have to get bang on, but then you weave the story around it.

And I think once you've told yourself the story in the first draft, then it's time to go back and put your reader head on and just make sure that everything is weaving together in a really satisfactory way for somebody coming fresh to the story.

And I think that's why I love twin timelines and why I've made it the kind of trademark of my books.

Because I think it's fascinating seeing that sort of ripple effect through history and how the effects of something that happens 50, 100 years ago, the.

The aftershocks of that in the present time.

I love when it's done really well, as well as I say, when they start to come together and it starts to make sense, how the lines are sort of not parallel, but they.

They're following and there's echoes, the past and the future as well.

I absolutely love it.

So when you're writing then, Kate, do you sit down?

Would you say, write Belle's story and then mirror story, or do you write it sort of.

How do you approach it?

Do you write it as we read it, or are you sort of sandwiching bits here and there?

It would make editing a lot easier if I.

If I wrote it as you, I would make my life so much easier.

But I don't really work like that.

So I know the beginning and I know the end.

And by the time I actually sit down to write the first draft, which, you know, I write the first scenes longhand, they're absolutely burning to come out.

You know, the cast is up and running and they're chattering away, and everybody wants their moment and their attention and their big scene.

So those are the first scenes that tend to come out.

And by the time you've got those written down, you have a real pulse to the story.

And it's really.

It's just keeping up with it then, you know, it's just the discipline of sitting down every day and just typing until your chair shaped just to get the story out.

So when you're writing, particularly if you're going back into doing like a timeline, like Belle, do you have any sort of rituals or anything that sort of puts you into that sort of voice or that time period?

How do you get into it?

What do you do?

I do.

I mean, there's all sorts of, you know, tricks that I tend to use.

I always have a playlist for every book.

So Belle had a playlist and Mira had a playlist.

So it's very good fun going back to all of those kind of great 80s disco tune, you know.

So Mira was at their sort of partying in Paris in the mid-80s.

So they each had their own sort of theme tunes, and it's a bit like being, you know, Pavlov's dog.

As soon as the music starts playing, you're there with Belle or you're there with Mira.

And they both had their own perfumes as well, so.

No way.

Yeah.

So, you know, I burned different oils or incense or whatever.

And for Mirror, I was dusting off some of those kind of big banger perfumes of the 80s, like opium and, you know, those really sort of, like, obsession, those heady, heady fragrances.

Poison, wasn't it?

Yeah, totally.

That was.

That was.

I think that was the first perfume I ever bought.

So.

Poison.

Yeah, yeah.

And what about for Belle, then?

What was.

So for Belle, I had much lighter kind of eau de colognes and, you know, sort of natural scents.

So, like lavender or this is more bergamot when she was in the south of France, that I wanted that whole sort of neroli orange blossom smell.

Coming through.

I want to sit in your office when you're writing.

I'll be quiet.

I'll sit there.

Be quiet.

Bring Roddy.

He can have a play date with Rod.

Roger.

Roger and I will sit in the corner quietly.

We won't distract you at all.

No.

One of the things I love about your writing and actually listening to you talk as well, it really comes across of, like, you're so creative, like.

And I love the way you write your descriptions.

Like, thank you.

And.

Oh, they're just beautiful.

You can transport me.

I feel like I can see what you're wanting me to see, be it the shop windows, that liberty, when you're describing a kimono or a place, it's so beautiful.

But what I also really love about it is that it's never at the cost of the flow of the story.

Do you know, sometimes you feel like you're getting a bit bogged down in, like, sensory details, and it's, like, always happening.

You balance it so well.

So is that sort of from lots of drafting or is it.

Yeah, very much so.

And I think it, you know, it comes back to that sort of idea of giving readers enough information that they can conjure the world.

Because, you know, it's what I love about reading a book in this, you know, it's not the same as sort of watching a film where everybody has the same experience.

Readers bring themselves to the story, you know, So I feel very much by the time we get to this.

This point, and it's a book and it's out there in the world, it becomes the reader's story.

You know, I've done my bit now.

And everybody brings their own life experience and their own, you know, hopes and dreams and their own passions to the story.

So everybody will see Belle slightly differently or, you know, they'll imagine that journey to Japan in a different way.

And I think, you know, that's.

That's the magic of reading.

That's why we all love books do,.

You know, and that is exactly.

I mean, that's one of my favorite things.

And when you're in a book club, I remember when you came to our book club to talk about the golden hour.

And, you know, some people had been to Egypt, some hadn't.

So we all had, like, different.

And it's.

Even though we're all sort of reading it differently and bringing our own experiences, it always amazes me how everyone can talk about it and there's never sort of any friction.

Like, you can watch a movie and people might have, like, you know, particularly if it's a screen adaptation, people might sort of, oh, she's not supposed to look like that.

Whereas in the book, it just.

Everyone sort of gels and sees it.

It feels like they own it as well.

I guess that's the beauty of, you know, getting lost.

And I think, boy, do we all need to get lost in good stories at the moment.

I know, I know.

We really do.

And actually, yours is out today when this podcast comes out.

So if you're feeling that way at home, this pick up.

So we talked a little bit about your research.

I remember seeing a post and you showed me your office, and you've got these amazing bookshelves everywhere.

You had a bookshelf for the silver thread that had, like, Chanel and Japan and things.

Also traveled a lot as well.

So is that.

Did you actually go anywhere for this, or you were relying on your memories of places that you'd been?

I did.

I mean, we did a trip last summer to Paris just to kind of refresh my memory.

So we went and lived for a couple of weeks in a really cute little apartment.

And I went and saw the Nymphia, the water lily paintings again at the orangery.

And I walked down the street that I knew.

You know, it's one of my favorite streets in Paris.

But I hadn't been there for a few years, so I walked it as if I was Belle, you know, sort of walking down avenues, you know, in the evening.

And you just, you know, you notice things like the little tobacco flowers growing, you know, Sort of down in the gutter and it's, it's those tiny little.

It's like the sort of, it's the last sort of sprinkle of magic on the story.

I think if, if you can go to the location that the story is set in, just to have those sort of last bits of detail, you know, it really helps.

And I think for readers who know, I remember again with the Golden Hour, there were people who had been to some of the places and they're like, you captured it spot on.

So I think if you're picking up a book because you're like, oh, it's set somewhere, I know.

Yeah.

You want it to sort of be, you know, I mean, I feel like I know London very well.

I haven't been to Paris very often.

I think that people do.

Would pick up on that if you were sort of, you know, doing a Google image search on it.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, I think, you know, if you, if you're writing about history or writing about something beyond your own sort of day to day experience, you've got a responsibility to get it right or at least within the realms of possibility for the reader, you know.

Yeah.

So I loved reading and I said to you before I actually was reading the Silver Thread when I wasn't very well.

It accompanied me like when I was having hospital trips and things.

And it was such a, a beautiful book for me to escape into and just sort of forget what was going on.

Oh, good, I'm glad.

Thank you.

What do you hope readers will feel when they turn the last page of the Silver Thread?

Well, in the nicest possible way, I hope you'll have a box of tissues to hand and you'll be having a little, little cry for Belle possibly.

I hope that it would encourage you to live a bold life in the way that Belle did, maybe to follow your heart and your dreams.

And I hope it might encourage you to go and, you know, book that holiday and go to somewhere that you've always wanted to go in the way that, you know, she went to Paris, she went to Tokyo.

She really, she lived her life.

You know, I think if it, if it encourages readers to go to Japan, that would be amazing.

You know, I think it's the most extraordinary place and it seems to be really fashionable at the moment.

I was talking to a friend yesterday and her son's out there at the moment.

So I think, you know, maybe like your son, the sort of younger kids are really, you know, fascinated by it as a place.

Yeah, I mean, there's Been a couple of really big sort of TV shows.

I mean, he's 13, but him and his friends are all desperate to go, which is lovely.

It's so lovely that they've found that.

So, looking back at your previous novels, you've taken us, Kate, to.

To Egypt, London, Spain, France and Japan, all sort of throughout the 30s and 40s.

So are we allowed to ask where and when you're taking us next?

Are you working on anything new?

I. I am.

I'm writing at the moment and it's a departure for me.

Sounds amazing.

And so.

Oh, sorry.

No, I was just going to say it's a lot of fun.

I'm enjoying this one.

Do you have a scent that you're burning when you're writing this?

I do, actually.

I've dug out patchouli.

I've gone.

I've gone for that really kind of heavy, you know, incensey smell.

So I think that that's sort of conjuring up that whole kind of 60s hippie, North Africa trail.

Yeah.

I remember when you said to me, you're mentioning Morocco and I was like, when I went to Morocco, and I always feel disappointed because I don't think I'll ever have it again.

It's like the smell of the mint tea in Morocco.

Yes, that too.

It's like if I go to a restaurant, they say they've got Moroccan mint tea.

I'm like, great.

And then I'm like, doesn't smell like.

It must be the sunshine.

And.

Yeah.

Nothing else.

That sort of.

It's not just the tea, it's where you are.

But 100% that smell for me is just like.

Oh, just so beautiful.

Yeah, Lemon mint.

Gorgeous.

Oh, lovely.

Well, I can't wait.

Sounds very greedy.

When the Silver Thread is only out today that I'm asking about the next book.

But yes, the Silver Thread is out today.

Highly recommend it.

So do go grab a copy and enjoy.

Thank you.

So we're going to talk about the books that have shaped your life.

Just before you do, all of the books that we've talked.

What.

The books that we will talk about will be linked in the show notes with links to buy as well.

So it'll be nice and easy for everyone.

So, Kate, I know I owe an apology to your bookshelves.

Because you didn't find this easy and some of them that you wanted to mention didn't get picked.

So I apologize to the books who have been left out.

I'm very sorry.

It was difficult.

I know I've got a shelf up there which, you know, it's the books that I love so much that I wish I'd written them myself.

Oh.

Choosing five from those was really hard.

And I feel very, you know, the poor books who are left up there.

I know.

I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry.

I often think I'm like, should I make it six?

But it just doesn't.

It's not easy.

You just want them all, don't you?

So it's like, where would I stop?

Okay, let's find out about book number one, then.

So book number one is a book that I tend to reread very often.

And it's the Leopard by Lampedisa.

Anyone who's watching, listening.

It's.

It's beautiful.

I don't even know how you would describe that.

It's beautiful.

It's like a leopard.

And Is it a theater curtain or.

Yeah, this is a first edition.

And it's.

I mean, it is a historical novel, but it's more than that.

It's almost got a sort of fairy tale quality to it.

And it's about the last days of the Italian aristocracy down in the south.

So it's full of sort of greed and passion and mystery and this incredible palace called Donna Fagata.

And I just.

I absolutely love it.

You know, it's been turned into an incredible film with.

I think it was something like Burt Lancaster played the prince.

And they've recently redone it on Netflix in a very good series as well, which, you know, really sort of conjures up the heat and the dust of the place.

But like everything, you know, the book is best.

The book is best.

The book is best.

I think that's so lovely that you have the first edition as well.

Like, that's such a. I don't have any first editions, but think could be so special if it's a book that means something to you to have that, particularly when it's so beautiful.

Absolutely.

I think it's a lovely idea as a sort of special birthday present or something.

If you've got a favourite book, you know, there's something very, very special about having a first edition of it.

Yeah, I need him to listen upstairs.

That's my birthday coming up.

I'll talk a bit louder.

Okay.

All right, then, let's move on to book number two, then.

So book number two is by a hero writer who I think deserves to be far more widely read.

Barbara Trappedo's brother of the more famous Jack, which is a coming of age story about a young girl called Catherine who becomes involved with her lecturers.

Very bohemian, big kind of wonderful, glorious, dysfunctional family.

And it's just, I think Torpedo is an extraordinary writer.

You know, she's.

It's the way that she handles these sort of very big, messy scenes.

You never get lost, you know, you're never thinking, okay, so who's that talking of?

You know, I've lost track of these people.

She's so skillful and she makes it seem absolutely effortless.

And it's, you know, it's incredible writing.

It really is.

And I, you know, I love it.

Anyway, it's another wonderful comfort read.

So highly recommend that one.

Another gorgeous cover.

That is a real skill because I quite often find sometimes if I.

If there's a lot of characters in a book, I think some people can do it really well where you sort of.

It's not a challenge as you're like, oh, hang on, who are you again?

Yeah, I think it's such a skill to do.

To do that well.

So I haven't read that one either.

I actually haven't read any of your books that you've picked.

Oh, add to the list.

Honestly, it's really great and it's aged really well because I think it's 40 years since it was published.

I listened to the audiobook driving back down from dropping my son at university the other day, and it was just as much fun, you know, just as much fun.

It was really.

Anyway, recommend it.

Audiobooks are brilliant for that, I think.

Sort of anything that you sort of.

I mean, I tend to do books that I might feel intimidated about picking up for whatever reason.

But that's a really nice idea to do that one on audiobook.

Although I have to say I would buy that one based on the COVID as well.

I love that cover.

So.

Okay, let's talk about book number three then.

Book number three is another hero writer of mine, Nora Ephron, who you might know from When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle and all those sort of wonderful 80s movies.

Heartburn is the story.

It's a room on a clef, really, about the disintegration of her marriage.

And I think she said something like, if your husband cheats on you get Meryl Streep to play you and it will make you feel a lot better.

Note to self.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, Streep played her in the movie, which is fantastic.

So it's Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

And she also narrates the audiobook of this as well, so.

Yeah, so if you fancy a good audiobook.

100%.

It's.

I'm looking at this.

I've never read Nora Ephron either.

Alexandra Potter picked.

I feel bad about my neck.

Yeah, I'm just looking at that.

That's a really slim little bit because there's.

She one of those writers that's like not a huge book, but you get loads out of it.

Is it one of those.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, she's just very sharp and very funny and witty and warm and, you know, it's somebody that you would have absolutely loved to sit down and have a really long, long lunch with.

I think that would have been amazing.

I'll have to check the audio because I remember when Meryl Streep did Tom Lake by Ann Patchett.

Oh, I love that as well.

It was amazing when she did the audiobook.

Just.

I could listen to it all day.

So I'll have to give that one a try as well.

Anything she does, I want.

Yeah, 100%.

Okay, let's have book number four, then.

So book number four is another.

I mean, James Salter is really.

I keep on going off the wrong side.

Is a real writer's writer, I think.

Incredible beauty to his work.

This is, again, about the disintegration of a marriage, but it's not as depressing as it sounds.

I mean, it's.

It's funny.

It's beautifully observed.

You know, he's very good on landscape and conjuring up the.

The sort of dynamics of a family.

I saw him read in London, actually, with his.

This.

What's his last book called?

As Good.

Not As Good as It Gets.

Something like that.

Anyway, I saw him in London reading from his last book just before he passed away.

So I'll always really treasure that memory.

It was incredible hearing him deliver his own words.

I think the way that writers read from their own books is, you know, it's fascinating.

Again, I totally.

I think I can listen to an author talk about or read from their book, and it could be a book that I wasn't particularly interested in.

In.

But when I hear them talk about it or read from it, it makes me want to.

To read it as well.

And I love when authors do Their audiobooks.

Yeah.

Rachel Joyce did the homemade.

God, I admire that so much.

I mean, how it must take hours and hours and hours to sit down.

Yeah.

I went to a thing at Penguin where they took us into the studios to have, like, a play around.

You can hear your own voice as you're reading.

I was like, no, it's so distracting.

I kept on going, oh, I can hear myself now.

Yeah, just keep going.

Ah, that must be.

Just to do the whole book and hear your voice.

That's incredible.

Yeah, it really is a real skill.

But I think with an audiobook, it has to be somebody who is brilliant and who gets the voice right as well, because otherwise it's just sort of sorts you out.

But I haven't read him either.

I haven't read any of his books.

Oh.

I just.

I recommend.

And his short stories are really beautiful as well, so.

Okay.

Okay, Kate.

Like four out of four.

Okay.

Let's try for the fifth book then.

Okay.

So the book I've chosen is the English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.

Again, it was a beautiful film, but I think the book is haunting and poetic.

It's set just at the end of the Second World War in this beautiful sort of ruined villa in Italy.

And a young nurse is taking care of a patient who's been burned.

So nobody quite knows what his.

His history is or the story of this English patient, basically.

And I love it.

You know, I reread this pretty much every year.

I read it for the first time on a flight to Singapore and just.

I stayed up all night to finish it because I just.

I fell in love with the who.

And his poetry is beautiful as well.

I've just.

I've just read his final collection of poems and it.

You know, he's an extraordinary writer.

I haven't read it.

Kate, have you seen the film?

I. I'm not sure.

I've watched it all the way through in one go.

It's my husband's favorite movie.

I'm not very good with movies, actually.

I can sit and read for hours, but I can't sit and watch movies for hours.

It's strange.

I need breaks like a child.

I have to have, like, a little movement break halfway through.

That's fair enough.

I can literally sit and read for hours and hours and hours and then.

But no, I haven't read it.

It was picked by Susan Fletcher.

Okay.

Nightingale Questions.

The second time it's been picked, so I really should.

Maybe it's another audiobook one for me.

To add it to the list.

Okay.

So I know you already really struggle to get it down to five.

Yes.

If I said to you you could only read one of those books again, Kate, which one would it be?

It would have to be the English Patient for me, because I think it's, you know, for me, it's that perfect balance between conjuring up again.

It's that sort of slightly fairytale sense of place, like you're out of time.

So there's timeless quality to it.

It's, you know, it's romantic, it's beautiful.

It's.

The language is gorgeous.

You know, the.

The way that he writes about things just.

It's mind blowing, you know, so.

So to me, it's a pretty perfect novel and it's a benchmark, you know, every time that I'm sort of floundering a bit.

If you go away and read this, it's.

It's something to aim for for me.

I think it's, you know, it's extraordinarily beautiful.

That's amazing.

Kate.

I have absolutely loved chatting to you today.

It's been so much fun.

Thank you so much for your time.

Oh, thank you.

And the dogs have been really good.

Roger's settled down here.

Yeah, he's fast asleep.

As soon as I enter, he'll want to go outside, I'm sure.

But thank you so much.

That's lovely to talk with you.

Thanks, Helen.

So that's it for season five.

I really hope that you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

A huge thank you to my guests who have been Julie Owen Morgan, Lucy Apt, Sarah Vaughan, Heidi Swain, Ilona Bannister, Andrea Mara, Lucy Ash, and of course, Kate Lord Brown.

Season six is just around the corner and I cannot wait to share with you what I've been working on.

I have been having the best time recording this new season to stay up to date with Best Book Forward News.

Make sure you've subscribed wherever you listen to your podcasts and head over to Instagram for lots more bookish chat.

In the meantime.

Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you soon.

Take care.