Sarah Perry is the author of the best-selling and award-winning The Essex Serpent : she and I discussed the passions and obsessions behind that novel, as well as about six books that inspired her as a writer, from Hilary Mantel's memoir, Giving up the Ghost, to Foxe's Book of Martyrs Jake Arnott's latest novel, The Fatal Tree, tells the story of Edgworth Bess and her Moll-Flanders-esque life in the heart of the 18th century criminal underworld.