Debut Class of 2024

As part of the 2024 Farsley Literature Festival we are bringing you something a little different, join us in St John’s Church, as we chat to nine of the most exciting debut authors of this year and they share with us their paths to publication.  Meet the Class of 2024 with Jennie Godfrey, Flora Carr, Sarah Marsh, Amy Twigg, Emily Howes, LJ Shepherd, Sarah Brooks, Ania Card and Jessica Bull.

Jennie Godfrey was raised in West Yorkshire and her debut novel, The List of Suspicious Things, is inspired by her childhood there in the 1970s. Jennie is from a mill-working family, but as the first of the generation born after the mills closed, she went to university and built a career in the corporate world. In 2020 she left and began to write. She is now a writer and part-time Waterstones bookseller and lives in the Somerset countryside.

Its Yorkshire, 1979. Maggie Thatcher is prime minister, drainpipe jeans are in, and Miv is convinced
that her dad wants to move their family Down South. Because of the murders.
Leaving Yorkshire and her best friend Sharon simply isn’t an option, no matter the dangers lurking round their way; or the strangeness at home that started the day Miv’s mum stopped talking. Perhaps if she could solve the case of the disappearing women, they could stay after all? So, Miv and Sharon decide to make a list: a list of all the suspicious people and things down their street. People they know. People they don’t. But their search for the truth reveals more secrets in their neighbourhood, within their families – and between each other – than they ever thought possible.
What if the real mystery Miv needs to solve is the one that lies much closer to home? ‘A heartwarming tale about the power of human connection, written with empathy, warmth and care. To read it is to feel that little bit better about life’ – Elizabeth Day

Flora Carr was named one of 40 London Library Emerging Writers 2020/2021. She won the Vogue Talent Contest and was Highly Commended for the 2020 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize. She was also shortlisted for the 2018 V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize. Her work has appeared in TIME Magazine, British ELLE, and The Observer New Review. Flora grew up in Yorkshire and currently lives in London. The Tower is her first novel, a fiery feminist retelling of Mary, Queen of Scot’s darkest hour.

They are imprisoned, but not contained. Three women cross a loch. It is 1567, one of them is pregnant, two of them fretful. The boat takes them to Lochleven castle in the middle of the water. Awaiting them are courtiers braying for blood, hellbent on keeping one of them under lock and key: Mary Queen of Scots.
In the tower, Mary’s maids Frenchwoman, Cuckoo and watchful Scot, Jane are her only allies, and the chamber their entire world. A new reality sets in where they are at the mercy of not only their keepers, but of raging Scotland itself.
In the outside world, Mary’s kin, Queen Elizabeth claims she can do little but write. Downstairs, the shrewd jailor-courtier Margaret Erskine places her daughter-in-law Agnes in the chamber as her pair of eyes. Hope seems futile until the bewitching Lady Seton arrives. Seton’s power shifts everything in the tower and soon a plan is hatched. But which of them will risk it all to save their mistress? Which woman loves her queen best? The Tower is a triumphant story of desire, grit, God-given power and wiles from a striking new voice in historical fiction. ‘An imaginative, dark gem of a novel, about women, power and fear, still, intelligent and beautifully written, yet as tense as a thriller.’ – Neil Blackmore, author of Radical Love

Sarah Marsh was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish prize in 2019 and selected for the London Library Emerging Writers programme in 2020. A Sign of Her Own is a debut novel by a deaf author inspired by her experiences of growing up deaf and her family’s history of deafness. It offers a fascinating window onto a hidden moment in history, and a portrait of a young deaf woman’s journey to find her place in the world, and her own authentic voice.

Ellen Lark is on the verge of marriage when she and her fiancé receive an unexpected visit from
Alexander Graham Bell. While her fiancé is eager to make a potentially lucrative acquaintance, Ellen knows what Bell really wants from her. Ellen is deaf, and for a time was Bell’s student in a technique called Visible Speech. As he instructed her in speaking, Bell also confided in her about his dream of producing a device which would transmit the human voice along a wire: the telephone. Now, on the cusp of wealth and renown, Bell wants Ellen to speak up in support of his claim to the patent to the telephone, which is being challenged by rivals. But Ellen has a different story to tell: that of how Bell betrayed her, and other deaf pupils, in pursuit of ambition and personal gain, and cut Ellen off from a community in which she had come to feel truly at home. It is a story no one around Ellen seems to want to hear – but there may never be a more important time for her to tell it. ‘Absolutely brilliant. An important story, so beautifully told. Ellen Lark is unforgettable’ – Emilia Hart, Sunday Times bestselling author of WEYWARD

Amy Twigg was born and raised in Kent. After studying Creative Writing at university, she moved to Surrey where she works as a freelance copywriter. Her debut novel, Spoilt Creatures, won the BPA Pitch Prize and was longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Competition and Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Award.
She is also an alumnus of the Curtis Brown Creative novel writing course.

Iris is adrift: thirty-two, newly single, living at home with her mother and working a dead end job. Her life changes when she meets the mysterious and beguiling Hazel, who lives at a women’s commune on a remote farm hidden in the Kent Downs. At the farm, the women can be loud and dirty, live and eat abundantly, under the leadership of the gargantuan Blythe.
Drawn to Hazel and the possibility of a new start away from a world of men who have only let her down, Iris throws herself into this alternative way of life, seizing on new experiences and hidden desires. But even among the women, she witnesses power struggles, cruelty and transgressions that threaten their precarious existence. When a group of men arrive on the farm, the commune’s existence is thrown into question, culminating in an act of devastating violence. ‘A modern-day Dionysian cult of women in the woods-haunting and exhilarating’ – Jennifer Saint, author of Ariadne

Emily Howes has worked as a storyteller, theatre maker, performer, writer and director in stage, television and radio. Her short stories have been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, the Bath Short Story Award, the New Scottish Writing Award and she won the Mslexia Novel Award 2021. In addition to writing fiction, Emily has a Masters in Existential Psychotherapy and works as a psychotherapist in private practice. The Painter’s Daughters is her first novel.

1759, Ipswich. Sisters Peggy and Molly Gainsborough are the best of friends and do everything together. They spy on their father as he paints, they rankle their mother as she manages the books, they tear barefoot through the muddy fields that surround their home. But there is another reason they are inseparable: from a young age, Molly has had a tendency to forget who she is, to fall into mental confusion, and Peggy knows instinctively that no one must find out.
When the family move to Bath, the sisters are thrown into the whirl of polite society, where the merits of marriage and codes of behaviour are crystal clear, and secrets much harder to keep. As Peggy goes to
greater lengths to protect her sister from the threat of an asylum, she finds herself falling in love, and their precarious situation is soon thrown catastrophically off course. The discovery of a betrayal forces Peggy to question all she has done for Molly – and whether any one person can truly change the fate of another. ‘Beautifully written . . I raced through it.’ – Hilary Mantel, author of The Wolf Hall trilogy

LJ Shepherd has been a practicing barrister since 2017 and has prosecuted and defended in many jury trials in the Crown Court. She is now a Human Rights barrister instructed in high-profile public inquires. The Trials of Lila Dalton is her first novel.

You are standing in the middle of a courtroom. The judge, jury and prosecution team are waiting for you to speak. But they don’t realise: you have no idea who you are.

Lila Dalton finds herself the lead defence for a man accused of a terrible crime, his fate in her hands. She doesn’t know how she got there, but is surprised to discover that she possesses legal knowledge, and that everyone else seems to know who she is. Outside the courtroom, things are even more unnerving: the courthouse is on a peculiar island where the locals are hostile, threats are slipped beneath her door, and her phone calls are tapped. Hints from strange sources suggest that someone from her forgotten past is in very real danger – but are the threats genuine, or a warning from her missing memories? As the trial progresses, Lila must decide who and what she can trust – and whether that includes herself… ‘Unputdownable from the first page’ – Sophie Hannah, author of The Couple at the Table

Sarah Brooks won the Lucy Cavendish Prize in 2019. She works in East Asian Studies at the University of Leeds where she also helps run the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing. She has a PhD on monsters in classical Chinese ghost stories. She is also co-editor of Samovar, a bilingual online magazine for translated speculative fiction.

It is the 19th Century and the world is awash with marvels. But there is nothing so marvellous and terrible as the Wastelands: a vast terrain that lies between Russia and China. Nothing touches this deadly wilderness except the Great Trans-Siberian Express: an impenetrable train built to carry precious cargo across continents, but which now also transports anyone willing to cross the irresistible Wastelands. The train is never short of travellers. After all, the train is completely safe.

Except . . . something happened on the last journey. No can remember exactly what, not even Weiwei, the famous ‘child of the train’ who was born on the Express.

The Trans-Siberia Company insist everything has been fixed. But the old rules are changing at a remarkable speed, and as secrets and stories of this curious cast of characters begin to unravel, something uncontrollable appears to be breaking in . . ‘A journey both unnerving and powerful, which thunders along at breathtaking speed, abounding with mysteries and marvels. Be warned – once you step in, you’ll never want to disembark’ – Samantha Shannon, author of The Bone Season

Ania Card lives in Brighton but was born and grew up in Poland. With nearly half of her life spent in the UK, she often finds herself between Poland and the UK, linguistically and culturally. She started writing in English when she arrived at Cardiff University, getting involved with the student cultural magazine ‘Quench’, where she became part of the editing team and headed the LGBTQ+ section. With a background in film theory and production, she has published film and music essays and reviews on independent platforms. “Above Us the Sea” is her first novel.

‘Maybe when we looked away from it, it could only be for a fragmented moment. Maybe our gaze always returned, our eyes always finding the sea.’ It’s after a night in Cardiff’s loudest gay bar that Toni first lays eyes on Gav, a retired Welsh boxer, and his boyfriend Karol, an aspiring Polish photographer. The trio soon fall into an intimate, ambiguous love triangle. After a tragic event at a beach in Swansea, the trio are ripped apart, and Toni escapes to London, becoming caught between a convenient, loveless relationship and an illicit, lustful affair. Lost halfway between the British future she has always wanted, and the Eastern European past she has been running from, Toni can only wonder where and with whom she really belongs.

Above Us the Sea is an ode to the tangled remains of lost loves and the imprints left by grieving souls, yearning for connection. This is a story of aching and emerging, intimacy and distance, set against an increasingly hostile landscape. ‘Above Us The Sea shows how we can be made and remade, translated and retranslated – for better and for worse – in the eyes and arms of others.’ – Jen Calleja, author of Vehicle

Jessica Bull is addicted to stories. She studied English literature at Bristol University, and Information Science at City University, London. She worked as a librarian (under the false impression that she could sit and read all day) before becoming a communications consultant.

When a young woman’s body is discovered during a ball on a Hampshire estate, the county is in uproar. For Jane, it is personal. Firstly, she is acquainted with the victim. Secondly, her brother, Georgy, is accused of the murder. Jane has always been a watcher, and a listener. Might she use her powers of observation to save her brother from the scaffold? Miss Austen Investigates will sweep readers away to Regency England where manners are more important than murder. ‘Richly imagined and wonderfully plotted – a great read’ – S.J. Bennett, author of Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series.