Q&A: Poppy Alexander, Author of ‘The Littlest Library’

We chat with author Poppy Alexander about her latest release The Littlest Library, which is a heartwarming literary-themed novel about a woman who turns an ordinary red phone box into the littlest library in England and brings together a struggling town.

Hi, Poppy! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?

Hi everyone, thanks so much for the invitation. What an absolute pleasure to talk to other book-lovers about my absolute favourite thing – books! So… about me… I am lucky enough to be a full-time writer, living in a ridiculously cute English village, in a cottage with roses around the door, along with my nearly grown-up children, my husband and a menagerie of other animals. Don’t tell my husband, but my favourite person in the house most days is my loyal fox-red Labrador Saffy, who lies on my feet as I write, constantly afraid that if she falls asleep whilst NOT on my feet, I’ll go out for a walk and forget to take her with me. I am a real homebody, just loving to potter around the house, lost in my secret world of stories. I have few vices these days, but my two worst ones are eating cake and allowing myself to be distracted by Wordle when I should be writing.

How has the first half of 2022 been for you?

I’ve been having a ball, thank you for asking! I’m in the midst of writing another romcom, which I am thoroughly enjoying, where my initially hard-drinking, hard-working, hard-partying protagonist is getting up to all sorts of mischief. I can’t wait for people to read it. Of course, we’ve all had a weird and traumatic couple of years… dare I even mention the ‘C’ word?… but I have been terribly lucky to have been able to carry on my life relatively unaffected, writing away in my little haven, surrounded by books and just going out even less often than usual.

When did you first discover your love for writing?

Oh gosh… I think it took me a long time to see writing stories as something I could do professionally, but writing, just for the joy of it, was very much part of my childhood. I remember, at five-years-old being asked by our class teacher in the American school I was attending in Germany (we were a forces family, moving around A LOT when I was a child) to write a story about – as I recall – a squirrel and a red apple. Of course, most of the class was painfully grinding out half a page and looking forward to playtime but I was off on a mission: Hours and a stack of pages later I had written this epic tale – staggeringly boring and repetitive – and the class teacher kindly helped me to bind it into a book. I even painted a picture for the front cover. So that was my first novel, and then there was a very long gap while my story-telling improved. Of course, as well as writing my own tales, I was a huge, huge reader. At boarding school – where I was raised by nuns – I was losing myself in books, reading at a rate of one novel a day at times. It was my escape at a time when I was finding life quite difficult.

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!

Famous Five by Enid Blyton. Stately pursuits by Katie Fforde. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

Your new novel, The Littlest Library, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

Warm, charming, romantic, escapist, inspiring – if I say so myself… what a question! You know how unassuming British people like to be.

What can readers expect?

Readers can expect comfort, joy, emotion and – of course – a happy ending. Jess, my main character, has had her safe, steady life turned upside-down by the death of her beloved Grandmother. Forced out of her comfort-zone, she takes a chance and moves – with her precious boxes of books – to the little Devon village of Middlemass, where the local population seems friendly enough, with the notable exception of neighbour, Aiden. She fills the old telephone box outside her cottage with her precious books and quickly sees her little library of stories inspiring the inhabitants of the village. Of course, books have such power to inspire and comfort and soon rifts are being healed, lives are being changed and – it seems – even love can be in store for the most solitary of souls, even Jess.

Where did the inspiration for The Littlest Library come from?

We genuinely do have old telephone boxes being turned into libraries in the UK. It’s a real thing! I have one not even a mile from my house… My editor at the time came up with the suggestion, and I immediately loved the idea of particular books falling into the hands of those who need them. Throughout my life books have inspired, comforted and encouraged me, and it was an honour and a privilege to weave some of those books, real-life classics, into my story. There is everything from Dr Seuss to the Brontes in there – the actual books that have made a difference in my life – and I wonder how many readers will agree with my selection and how many will start thinking about their own really special books when they read Jess’s tale.

Can you tell us a bit about the challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?

Phew, well I don’t want to give you the impression that writing a novel is on a par with climbing Everest (except it kind of is, you know? 😉). It’s a privilege to be able to do the thing I love, but every writer will recognise the times they are staring at an empty screen, or the days when all your characters seem to want to talk about to each other is the weather. When my story is stuck, I find it helpful to take the dog out for a walk while I think things through; I am sure I have a reputation locally for being that eccentric woman who marches through the woods talking to herself. I will also allow myself to leave the scene I’m stuck on and get on with writing a later scene because sometimes just the act of writing can help things come unstuck but – ultimately – there can be days when writing is not a thing. So, as long as I am meeting my deadlines, I will absolutely take a day off to meet up with friends to eat and walk and talk about anything and everything else. My other welcome distraction is social media, which – at its best – feels like chatting to like-minded souls at a cocktail party. Having readers able to reach out through social media is such a joy. For me, as a reader myself, knowing I can actually tell an author when I have loved their book is awesome.

Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?

The early scenes between Aiden and Jess, when the sparks are flying, were fun to write. I also loved exploring the relationship between Diana and Mungo, my older couple who have been best friends for decades. They get up to all sorts of mischief together and are always encouraging Jess to loosen up and take a few risks. I think, secretly, I want to be Diana, the sweary older woman who doesn’t care what anyone thinks and just wants to have a good time.

Were there any ‘must-haves’ you wanted to incorporate when it came to writing your novel, such as tropes, topics, characteristics etc?

I am a big fan of the ‘enemies to lovers’ romcom trope, but – on the whole – I am not thinking in terms of tropes when my story is revealing itself to me. My readers are probably better placed than me to see and name the romcom conventions in my stories. I do have a very deep desire to create a world where I personally feel at home and want to spend time, so you will generally see a picturesque village setting, with lovely views, gorgeous houses and a wide age-range in the characters too. I will always include older characters, because they are fun, as are children who are useful as the person who sees and comments on the action in a more innocent way. Oh, and I always have animals. I find cats are hilarious to write because they have this air of entitled superiority, and I feel that my hero character, Aiden, is more attractive for having a loyal little dog at his heels. It’s a subliminal message to readers that he’s a good guy, despite his bad moods.

What’s next for you?

I have just written a story around three female characters – united by their love of sea-swimming – who decide to shake up their lives by performing a series of challenges, all in the course of a single year. It’s another charming village community setting, and I do love a multigenerational female friendship (naturally, there is a romance in there too). I am loving my life and really enjoying building loyal readers for my books. I am just going to keep writing and see what happens next – the sky is the limit!

Lastly, do you have any 2022 book recommendations for our readers?

I have a secret penchant for bloody murders (reading, not committing) and am delightedly working my way through British writer Kate Rhodes’s books about Ben Kitto, a detective on the Scilly Isles, where the scenery is beautiful but the murder rate per capita is absolutely shocking. Her sixth, ‘The Brutal Tide’ is out in the UK in October. I am also half-way through Clare Marchant’s The Queen’s Spy, a timeslip novel set partly in the court of Queen Elizabeth 1^st and her third novel ‘The Mapmaker’s Daughter’ is coming out this September, also in the UK. If readers are looking for something similar to my Poppy Alexander books, one of my all-time favourite authors is Sue Moorcroft, who is a prolific writer of the cosy, emotional read.

Will you be picking up The Littlest Library? Tell us in the comments below!