Lucky 13 Interview With Louise Fein

1. Can you start by telling us a little about your current book?

People Like Us is a work of historical fiction, and is the story of impossible love set against the tumultuous background of 1930’s Leipzig. Hetty is the daughter of a high-ranking SS officer and believes she has an important role to play in the brand new Thousand Year Reich. Until Walter, a Jew and friend from the past, changes everything. As antisemitism grows by the day, neighbours, friends and family turn on one another, Walter is everything Hetty has been taught to hate, but as her feelings for him grow, she begins to question everything. Confused and conflicted, Hetty doesn’t know who she can trust, especially when she discovers someone has been watching her. The book was inspired by my family history and is based around real events. People Like us is out in paperback on 4th March!

2. Are you a plotter or a pantser?

Definitely a pantser, but with ambitions of becoming more of a plotter. It's a balance between the artistic freedom of letting that first draft go to weird and wonderful places, and ensuring that at the end of it, you don’t end up with one huge mess which requires twenty-five more drafts to pull it into shape.

3. Savoury or Sweet?

Savoury.

4. Three books to a desert Island. Go!

1. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy - I’ve never read it. Feel I should, but the length has always put me off. I’ll have the time!

2. How to Stay Alive: The Ultimate Survival Guide for Any Situation, Bear Grylls - I think I might be needing this.

3. Bridget Jones’s Diary - for something lighthearted and funny. I might crave that after the other two.

5. Star Wars or Star Trek?

Neither. Is that allowed??

6. If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Thought control. If I could control other people’s thoughts, I could sort out all the politicians around the world to take proper action on climate change, poverty etc. I’d make everyone non-racist and with an overwhelming desire to become vegan. Very useful and fun, but also rather a scary superpower.

7. Music or Silence when writing?

Silence. And my family get really cross with me about this. They all like music. A lot. ’Turn it down’ are the words most heard when I’m working!

8. If you could live anywhere in the world, and take everything that you love with you, where would you choose?

I think I would choose New Zealand. I stayed there for a month after my university days and fell in love with it. It has everything that makes me happy - mountains, space, sunshine, lush countryside, whales. A nice little writing studio overlooking the sea, and a house with thick walls so I couldn’t hear the family’s music. Perfect.

9. Your favourite Karaoke song?

‘It’s Raining Men’, because it's perfect for belting out and feeling happy, and because I know all the words.

10. One piece of advice to an aspiring writer?

Build your resilience. Writing and publishing is full of knock-backs and lows, punctuated with a few highs. From persisting with draft after draft and not giving up, to dealing with rejections and bouncing back. Even after getting that publishing deal, you have to contend with the edits and changes, bad reviews, perhaps disappointing sales and the worry of getting the next book deal and being able to write the next good book. All writers have these things! It’s so important to be able to get back up, brush yourself down and keep going however hard it can seem. You never know when the next ‘good’ thing will happen.

11. You win £1 million, but you must give half to charity. Which charity do you chose and what do you do with the rest of the money?

I think that one of the biggest challenges we are facing for the future is the change in climate and environmental destruction. It is in all our best interests to preserve this for future generations. I would therefore donate to the WWF which does a lot of work in this regard. With the rest of the money, I would buy a cottage near the sea and open it up for writing retreats for writers. Although if they work with music they might have to bring their headphones.

12. Horror films, yes or no? If so, any favourites?

Err, no. But I do like a good psychological thriller. Might spend some of it behind a cushion, mind. Recently watched the brilliant, The Serpent. Not horror but as a true story it sort of was.

13. What are you currently working on?

I’ve just finished copy edits for my next book, The Hidden Child which will be out in the UK on 2nd September and in the US/Canada, 12th October. Partially based on real characters and events, it is set in England in the late 1920’s, and is the story of Eleanor and Edward Hamilton who have wealth, status and a happy marriage. Edward, a celebrated war hero, is a leading light in the burgeoning Eugenics movement and is increasingly important in designing education policy for the nation. But the 1929 financial crash is looming and they are harbouring a terrible, shameful secret. How far are they willing to go to protect their charmed life, even if it means abandoning their four-year old child to a horrific fate?