1) What is the best and worse thing you have learned from an editor/agent?
Trust your instincts. Like many aspiring authors, I was in awe of both
when I first started writing. The fact that I have now been writing for over
thirty years means I’ve been at it longer than they have – and I’ve learned
a lot. They are not always right but I’ve had enough experience to listen to
my own advice.
2) What is your typical day?
Waking up is always a good start when you get to my age! Then it’s two
coffees, breakfast and depending on deadlines, I might even get round to
some work. I don’t keep to a timetable. I just do what needs to be done
when it needs to be done. If that makes any sense.
3) What do you read while in the midst of a project? Or don’t you?
At present I’m reading The Big Crash which is an account of the Wall
Street Crash, opinions as to why it happened and the Great Depression
that followed. I find it fascinating. It may not sound as though it has
anything to do with the kind of books I write, but you’d be wrong.
4) What do you do with a paperback once you’ve read it?
Redistribute unless it’s signed by a friend or one of the rarities I will read
again, e.g. The Cicero Series by Robert Harris. Or Rise and Fall of the Third
Reich by William Schirer. He was an American journalist stationed in Berlin
when the Nazis came to power. Very authentic. |Oh, and Dickens. I’ve got an
old collection with embossed gold spines. Dickens was the first man to write
fiction about the lower classes
5) Are you nervous about friends reading your book?
Not really. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I’m a writer of historical
sagas but read very few of them, a fact which I get quite embarrassed about.
6) What things inspire you to write? Location, music, film or even in a book?
Issues. I’m constantly amazed at the presumption that things have always
been where we are now. The past was a time of extreme poverty, sub-standard
housing, unemployment and, my latest soap box, family planning. I think the
overturning of Roe v Wade in the US drove me to write a story around how
things were before the birth pill and a more intense attention to women’s
health and also to infant mortality. 50% of kids didn’t get to see their fourth
birthday. We should never be casual about vaccination and how far medicine
has come.
7) Share your blurb or short excerpt from your latest release with us
BAD COMPANY ON CORONATION CLOSE
Book five of the series.
Publication date, 15 th of January, 2026
PROLOGUE.
The coal hole was dark. There was no point in crying, no point in pleading
with him to let her out. She had been a few minutes late putting his dinner
on the table. No matter whether he was on the day or night shift, he was
fastidious about what time he ate his meals – to the minute, if not the
second.
And when she was late…
There was also the pig bin inspection. Every bone had to be cleanly picked
of meat. Vegetable peelings must be boiled to get the last bit of goodness
out of them before being thrown in the pig bin. The pig bin itself had to be
scrubbed after every emptying. Newspapers had to be properly tied up –
or she would be.
She tried to remember if she’d done everything she should have done that
day, but it seemed that she hadn’t.
Ever since she was a little girl she’d hated the dark. Percy knew that,
knew how to make her suffer. And here they were with a coal hole off the
kitchen beneath the stairs that led to the first floor. The dream of a happy
married life had been a nightmare, the coal hole revisited in the darkest,
deepest time of the night.
8) What’s next for you?
I did have this farfetched idea of having some time off from now until
Christmas, but my editor has the whip hand! I’ve just delivered book four
of the Orchard Cottage Hospital series, Echoes of War. It centres on the
shadow of the Great War of 1914-18 which persisted throughout the
thirties – right up until the next conflict, 1939 to 1945. Publication is
scheduled for May, 2026.
I’ve just written the sales blurb for that one and also for Lochranza
(working title only) that’s set in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries. Back in the day I think it would have been referred to as a
bodice ripper! My agent likened it to Forever Amber.
I now need to think about book six of the Coronation Close series. Book
five, Bad Company at Coronation Close is due to be published on the
15 th of January. It’s gritty, but then most of my books are.
BIO:
Lizzie Lane is the author of over 50 books, including the bestselling Tobacco Girls series. She was born and bred in Bristol where many of her family worked in the cigarette and cigar factories
Details of my website plus a sign up to author letter,
www.LizzieLaneauthor.com
LizzieLane on Facebook and LizzieLane40 on Instagram
Thanks so much for being here, lovely lady!
I will no doubt see you very soon,
Rachel x
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