We chat with New York Times bestselling author Natasha Lester all about her latest release The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre, an unforgettable story of an orphan turned WWII spy turned fashion icon in Paris—perfect for fans of Kate Quinn and Fiona Davis.
Hi, Natasha! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I live in Perth, Western Australia, the most isolated capital city in the world, but definitely the place with the best beaches! I’ve published seven historical novels now, which I can’t quite believe, and my latest is The Three Lives of Alix St Pierre. I’m a New York Times bestselling author, my books have been translated into 21 languages and I used to work as a marketing executive for Maybelline cosmetics. I have three children too.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ve wanted to write from the time I could read. My mum has copies of all the many poems and books and stories I wrote when I was a kid. One of my proudest childhood moments was being asked to read one of my stories out (into the microphone – super exciting!) at a school assembly. I loved the feeling of being totally swept away to another world when I read a book and I thought it would be wonderful to do that for a living.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
First book I remember reading: Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
Book that made me want to become an author: Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
One I can’t stop thinking about: Great Circle, by Maggie Shipstead
Your latest novel, The Three Lives of Alix St Pierre, is out January 10th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Fashion, espionage, Paris, gutsy heroine.
What can readers expect?
Alix St Pierre is an orphan, a schoolgirl, and a spy and then she becomes the publicity director for the soon-to-be-launched House of Christian Dior in Paris in late 1946. But she soon discovers that someone in Paris is trying to find out what she did during the war, which is something she’s sworn never to speak about. So she finds herself with two jobs: trying to convince the press to come to the first showing from the new and unheard of couturier Christian Dior, and also trying to find the man who’s looking for her – before he can track her down
Where did the inspiration for The Three Lives of Alix St Pierre come from?
It was inspired by two things. The first is that four of the key management positions at the house of Christian Dior in 1947 were held by women – the directrices of sales, the studio, the ateliers and also his assistant designer. Without those women, I don’t think he would have been the success he was – and still is. But nobody knows those women today. Amidst all the women was a male publicity director from America. I decided to change history and make the American publicity director into a woman named Alix St Pierre so I could explore just how the group of women at Dior were emblematic of the postwar time – overlooked and unappreciated and forgotten by history, but so crucial to making history at that moment in time. And I also discovered a woman named Mary Bancroft who somehow worked as a spy in neutral Switzerland during the war. I wanted to know more about how a woman came to be working in a neutral country as a spy from 1943 to 1945.
Can you tell us a bit about the research behind Alix St Pierre?
Some of it was incredibly fun. I had to study pictures and illustrations of Dior’s very first New Look gowns from February 1947, and fill my mind with fascinating facts – that Dior relied on fortune tellers and wasn’t going to go ahead with his couture house until a fortune teller told him she could foresee it was going to be successful; and that Carmel Snow, the famous Harper’s Bazaar editor and one of the characters in the book, used to hold meetings in her bathtub in her Paris hotel! There was also some more serious research, particularly into the role of women during and after the war, and into the lesser known theatres of war in Switzerland and Italy, where Alix finds herself embroiled in a dangerous campaign to help the partisans fight the Nazis. I also travelled, like Alix does, across Switzerland and through the Italian Alps, down into the Piedmont region of Italy. I spent a bit of time in Paris too as a large part of the book is set there – how I suffer for my art!
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Alix is my hands-down favourite of all my heroines. She has the best one-liners and she’s also a little more vulnerable and has seen more of the world than the women I usually write about. I also really enjoyed writing the dialogue between Alix and her nemesis, newspaper editor Anthony March. They bring out the worst in one another – until things change and they bring out the very best.
Do you have any advice for those who may have set some writing resolutions for the new year?
Never give up. You don’t know when the luck you need is waiting for you, just around the corner.
What’s next for you?
A book set in the rocking 1970s about a fashion legend who disappeared, leaving behind only a white silk dress and the question: what happened to Astrid Bricard?
Lastly, are there any 2023 releases our readers should look out for?
I’m looking forward to Kate Morton’s Homecoming, Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy and Emily Henry’s Happy Place.
