Victorian Women Weren't Allowed to Play Football. They Did It Anyway.
In 1897, a woman calling herself Nettie Honeyball founded Britain's first ladies' football club — and doctors wrote to the newspapers warning it would make women infertile. Author Frances Quinn joins me to talk about The Scandalous Ladies' Football Club, her brilliant historical fiction novel inspired by that true story, and the real Victorian scandal of women simply choosing to play the game.
We talk about inventing a fictional rival team to give the real history its missing plot, writing three women each trapped by Victorian society in different ways, and the friend who told her a 70,000-word draft was "a little bit rubbish" — and was right. Frances also tells me about her dream writing retreat with three fellow authors in a Norfolk cottage, why a sea view would ruin her concentration completely, and what powered the words this time round (a chocolate digestive, eaten strictly undunked).
Before that, a spoiler-free look at three books I've been reading:
- Not Quite Myself, by Mike and Claire Gayle — a body-swap story about a couple who separate the morning after dropping their youngest at university, told in alternating chapters by a husband-and-wife writing team
- The Butler, by Clare Mackintosh — a shorter, glamorous whodunnit set at a French villa during Cannes, a real change of pace for the author
- In Deep Water, by Elle Blair — a cruise-ship murder mystery that didn't land for me, though the reviews suggest it may well land for you
Featured book:
The Scandalous Ladies' Football Club, Frances Quinn
That's this episode — spoiler-free reviews of Not Quite Myself, The Butler, and In Deep Water, plus Frances Quinn on the real history behind The Scandalous Ladies' Football Club.
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