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This episode's book: The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell, is a story about two seemingly very unrelated women as they come to terms with new motherhood, love and hidden family secrets.

This week’s guest is Sara Foster is an internationally bestselling author known for her gripping psychological thrillers and emotionally rich storytelling. Originally from the UK and now based in Western Australia, Sara is one of our best writing friends and we can’t wait to hang out with her again on retreat later in the year. Most importantly she knows how to party and we were recently luck enough to attend her 50th 70s themed bday on a boat!

In this episode, we cover:

Maggie O’Farrell’s long, fabulous career (no, we’re not jealous)

Authors who write many different types of books

Themes of motherhood in fiction.

The tenses we like in fiction.

Simple but poignant premises

Sara’s reading tastes and recommendations

💋 And, of course, we rate THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE: Kiss, Kill, or Marry.

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📚 Books Mentioned in this Ep

The Book of Unnamed Midwives by Meg Elison

Story Genius by Lisa Cron

Anything by Lisa Jewell, Taylor Jenkins Reid and Liane Moriarty

Far From The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving

God of the Woods by Liz Moore

The Hush by Sara Foster

You Don’t Know Me by Sara Foster

⏰ Timestamps

0:00 – Intro to our fabulousness (even if we do say so ourselves)

0:41 – Rach’s disappearing act and all the many luncheons.

2:23 – Introducing our fabulous guest - Sara Foster. She’s been prepping hard but still feels nervous, making Rach feel ALL powerful.

2:56 – The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell - Sara beautifully reads the blurb.

4:48 – Judging Sarah’s author bio. She has a PhD AND a very cute dog. We are officially in awe yet Anthea still gives her tips on how to improve it! Rach suggests Sarah write a memoir about the boozy, long-lunch era of publishing.

9:23 – Judging Maggie O’Farrell’s bio - Rach feels she’s a bit of a braggart, then boasts about her own thirty-something books. Sara talks about Maggie’s varied career (spoiler - she loves everything she’s written).

14:49 – Book facts, awards and Goodreads. Goodreads give it the tick of approval but now it’s our turn to Kiss, Kill or Marry. Every gets nervous and Rach no longer trusts her own opinion!

17:15 – Book discussion: Oh Lord, it’s another quiet novel. Lexi vs Elena timelines – which gal was the funnest? Anthea likens the book to eating All Bran.

22.00 - Rach needs a few things explained. She’s really pissed off about a baby with no-name, but aside from that she sounds rather obsessed.

25.12 - Oh Lord, Rach is waxing lyrical about quiet novels again, yet can’t explain what she loves so much about this book.

26.41 - Why on earth is Maggie so compelling? Rach admits she’s really nosey!

29.07 - Sara tells us why Maggie is a literary genius! Speculating on Maggie’s writing process.

33:14 – Whose story is this? (Lexi vs Elena vs Ted debate) Does Ted even HAVE a passport?? Anthea really gets nit-picky, but makes a good point.

39:46 – Time to ask Sarah all the hard questions. Eg. Who are her auto-buy authors?(Rach and Anthea offended not to feature)

40:49 – Sarah’s top book recommendation: The Book of the Unnamed Midwife – this is the fancy kind of shiz we’ve come to expect from Sara… We can’t believe neither of us have ever even heard of it.

42:50 – Trigger warnings debate – When do we need to know?

44:34 – Classic novel Sarah hasn’t read and overhyped books

49:33 – Sarah’s favourite of her own books and insight into the podcast adaptation of You Don’t Know Me.

52:10 – Reading reviews: do our authors look?

56:03 – What’s next??

👉 Watch now and tell us - did you love The Hand That First Held Mine?

👉Next Ep, we’re diving into Theo of Golden by Allen Levi and our June guess is Kate Solly who is making us read The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.

July Books: 14th July - Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke28th July - Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster with guest author Tamara Moss

Exciting NEWS - we’ve pretty much locked in all our books for the rest of the year! You can see them here!

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