Hi, Susan! Welcome back! How have the past 18 months been since we last spoke for the release of Pandora?

Hello, and thank you for having me back! Well, since Pandora was released in the US in January ‘23, the UK paperback was released at the same time, which meant I was back on the tour-run, and during the majority of 2023 I was still working on The Shadow Key which was released here in the UK this April just gone, which of course meant another tour-run. Together with all that, I’m working away at my third novel, plus a Regency short story collection too, so as you can imagine it’s all been rather full on!

Your latest novel, The Shadow Key, is out September 10^th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

Dastardly happenings in deepest darkest Wales (okay, sorry, that’s six).

What can readers expect?

I consider Pandora to be a ‘light, feminine Gothic’ novel whereas on the flip side I would class The Shadow Key as a ‘dark, masculine Gothic’ one. That’s because this novel is a much murkier beast which deals with some very interesting themes (some of which I mention below). Saying that, this doesn’t mean to say fans of my debut won’t enjoy my second because it still feels very much like a ‘Susan’ novel – there is yet again a rich cast of characters including my spunky heroine Linette who is a perfect foil to my troubled doctor Henry, a dastardly villain (or two, or three!), a mighty sighthound named Merlin, and they’ve all been mixed in with a little bit of Welsh myth and Occult magic, as well as a few moments of ambiguity to keep you questioning to the very end.

Where did the inspiration for The Shadow Key come from?

The initial idea for the novel had been lingering in my mind since 2006, and began when I would take walks with my mother in the hills behind her house during term breaks from university. My imagination ran riot with stories of Welsh myth and magic, and anyone who has walked the woodland lanes and mountain paths, and experienced Wales’ haunting strangeness and rugged beauty, cannot avoid the country’s folkloric heritage. Wales is called ‘Land of Dragons’ for a reason – here you’ll find stories of King Arthur and his knights, fearsome lake monsters, loyal hounds, mighty giants, and fay folk both pure and mischievous, so it was inevitable I would eventually write a novel set in Wales using these ideas as a springboard.

However, during the course of my research, the idea for the novel began to become a little more nuanced. I soon found that eighteenth-century Wales was also a deeply Christian country, and while ordinary folk believed in the ancient tylwyth teg they equally believed in Satan. But for many Englishmen, the advent of the Grand Tour allowed members of the aristocracy to broaden their understanding of other cultures and religious beliefs, and one result of this was the rise of ‘Hellfire’ clubs. The most famous Hellfire Club, the ‘Monks of Medmenham Abbey’, was founded around 1755 by Francis Dashwood, 11th Baron le Despencer, and its members famously dressed in exotic costumes and partook in acts of drunkenness and debauchery. Rumour had it that some clubs even included Devil worship, and I found this cultural shift between the English and Welsh – as well as the tension between such belief systems – a wonderful juxtaposition, which gave me an opportunity to explore religion and superstition through a Georgian lens. Ultimately The Shadow Key became a tale of faith, elitism and exploitation …

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

I’m afraid I can’t answer that too deeply for fear of spoilers, but what I can say is that I really enjoyed reading up on all the many Welsh myths and deciding which to include. If you’re interested in them, a good starting point would be The Mabinogi, four distinct tales which are linked to Welsh narratives compiled some time between the latter half of the 11th century and the early 13th century.

In terms of characters, I do have a particular fondess for Henry as he was the character who was with me the longest, although Linette was an absolute pleasure to create! I think a lot of women will connect with her firey spirit.

Can you tell us a bit about your research process?

I feel I need to have an arsenal of research at my feet before I am ready to even put the first word to page. Typically, I will spend about three months researching. This often means reading up on secondary sources (e.g. non-fiction books on Welsh history and medicine), as well as looking through primary texts which could be found in the period in which I’m writing (in this case, Thomas Pennant’s A Tour in Wales, originally published in two volumes; 1778 and 1781). I also like to visit venues wherever possible to get a true sense of place. For The Shadow Key I visited a copper and a slate mine, as some scenes are set in a mine, which really helped me imagine what it would have been like down one – water dripping from the low ceilings, the sharp cold, the claustrophobic dark … I think, when writing fiction, imagination can only take you so far.

With this your second published novel, were there any key lessons learned between writing the two?

To not take the writing process for granted! I often call Pandora my ‘fluke novel’ because everything fell into place so easily and quickly – from research to final draft the process took ten months and it just seemed to take off without much stress. Rather naively I thought the same thing would happen with The Shadow Key, especially since the idea had been stuck in my head in some form or other for a decade. Alas, this did not happen, and I spent a good deal of time muddling my way through for over two years and ultimately discarding 100k of words before I was even close to having an acceptable first draft, and after that there were countless structural edits to get my head around. The whole process gave me such a sense of failure and imposter syndrome that I vowed to do things differently for the next novel: write up a detailed plan before putting pen to paper, and understanding that every book is going to have its challenges.

What’s next for you?

As I already mentioned, I am currently working on a third novel and a short story collection. The novel will be set in 1765 Prague and is a story of fate and reckoning and love and ambition, all revolving around the ancient city’s astronomical clock Orloj, which I first saw on a trip to Prague in 2013. The short story collection is something a little different for me – titled The Twelve Days of Christmas, it is a collection of seasonally linked vignettes inspired by the Christmas carol of the same name (the lyrics were originally written in 1780), and a nod to my admiration for Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, with whom my love of the Georgians first started. It’s not Gothic at all – this is a lighthearted Regency romp of a book meant to bring people some nostalgic festive cheer, and I’m really excited to be working on it.

Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?

This is actually a really tricky question to answer because while I’m in the writing mire I don’t generally get a chance to read for pleasure, so my reading repertoire has been rather thin on the ground lately. Saying that, I really enjoyed Sarah Perry’s Enlightenment, as well as Elizabeth Macneal’s The Burial Plot, and Lora Jones’ debut The Woman in the Wallpaper, which will be released in the US next year. One book I have yet to read but am desperate to get hold of is The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable.

Will you be picking up The Shadow Key? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: Susan Stokes-Chapman, Author of ‘The Shadow Key’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

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

Of course! I was born in 1985 and grew up in the historic Georgian city of Lichfield (where my love of the era began) before moving on to spend four years in the coastal town of Aberystwyth, graduating with a BA in Education & English Literature and an MA in Creative Writing. My debut novel PANDORA which came out originally in the UK became an instant #1 Sunday Times bestseller, and was previously shortlisted for the 2020 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize and longlisted for the Bath Novel Award that same year. I now live in North West Wales, endlessly pestered by a pair of very beautiful (and very naughty) British Shorthair cats named Byron and Brontë.

When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?

I was always an avid reader. The first book that made me fall in love with reading was undoubtedly Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery. Like me Anne was a dreamer with a passion for literature, and I really connected to that, to see a character that echoed myself in some way. I think it was around twelve that I started to dabble with short pieces of fiction and fan-fiction too (I loved Star Wars in particular), but it wasn’t until I was fourteen that I knew I wanted to write for a living after reading the historical romance novels of American author Shirlee Busbee. She wrote what my mother jokingly calls ‘corset rippers’, but Busbee’s books were more than that – they had a richly researched historical setting (typically eighteenth-century) which completely fascinated me.

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!

That’s hard! I’ve already mentioned Anne of Green Gables and the novels of Shirlee Busbee, but I read so many wonderful books in those early years. I grew up on Sweet Valley Twins and Goosebumps books, then later had a penchant for Anne Rice, Jane Austen, all forms of historical fiction, and gothic novels in particular, especially Jane Eyre! It was a very organic process that came about through a real immersion in a lot of different genres of literature growing up.

Your debut novel, Pandora, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

Indiana Jones meets Jane Austen.

What can readers expect?

Readers need to be aware that rather than a retelling of the Greek myth, my novel is more of a loose reinterpretation of it. I have taken the concept of the mythical Pandora and placed her into eighteenth-century Georgian London, and while the myth comes through loud and clear Dora Blake is her own individual character, not Pandora herself. Readers can expect visceral settings, dastardly deeds, some historical facts, beautiful jewellery, Greek antiquity, myth and romance, and characters you’ll really root for. Oh, and a magpie!

Where did the inspiration for Pandora come from?

Both Dora and Hermes popped into my head fully formed, and the myth of Pandora’s Box sort of came up along side it. I knew I wanted to combine them somehow, so set initially to researching the myth. On disappearing down a Google rabbit-hole I discovered that Pandora’s box was never a box at all, but a vase! It turns out that ‘box’ was a mistranslation, courtesy of the sixteenth century philosopher Erasmus. When he translated Hesiod’s tale of Pandora into Latin, the word pithos (a large storage jar, or, vase) was translated into the Latin word pyxis, meaning ‘box’. All I needed to do then was find a way to get an ancient and potentially magical vase over to eighteenth century England! I set then to researching antiquity in the Georgian period, whereupon I came across the name William Hamilton who was a collector of Greek vases, having collected many of them during his 35 years living in Naples. In 1798 when a French invasion seemed imminent, he decided to pack off his vase collection to England for safety. Ironically, some of this collection went down with the naval ship HMS Colossus off the Scilly Isles. It was this historical fact that allowed me to place the mystical Pandora’s ‘Box’ into the Georgian London.

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

I loved all scenes with Cornelius, especially ones where he and Dora are at loggerheads! My favourite scene between them is near the end though, where they both begin to see each other in a different light, and a revelation is made. Lady Latimer was also extremely fun to write – she brings quite a bit of light into an otherwise quite dark story.

With Pandora set in Georgian London, did you discover any fun tidbits during your research?

Fun tidbits is probably not the right term to use in this instance, but in the eighteenth century there was a distinct divide between the concept of ‘legal’ acquisition of antiquities (the excavations made by William Hamilton, for instance) and the acquisition of antiquities on the black-market. However both types of acquisition were technically stealing, so there are lots of ethical implications concerning that. There are also interesting parallels between contemporary attitudes to possession of foreign property. It just goes to show how history can teach us still about the modern world!

Can you tell us a bit about your journey of getting Pandora published?

A bit of a whirlwind to be honest! I spent ten years prior to Pandora focusing on another novel before finally admitting defeat and shelving it. Within two weeks of doing that Dora and Hermes popped into my head, but I was still feeling so raw after my last agent rejection I decided to sit on the idea for six months before doing anything about it. I told myself that if the idea was still there all those months later that it was solid idea and to pursue it and it was, thankfully! After that it took ten months from researching to finishing a first draft. During the writing of that first draft I’d submitted the first 15k to the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize and later the Bath Novel Award. Getting longlisted for both was a changing point for me – after 42 rejections of my first novel it was strange to have agents actually reaching out to me! When I did send out to agents the process was incredibly fast – within 24 hours I was getting requests for the full manuscript, within a month I had five offers of representation, and a month further on I had a publishing deal. The deal was announced a year before the novel came out in the UK (January 2022), so I had twelve months of build up in terms of getting proofs out there, doing interviews, etc. It was very overwhelming!

What’s next for you?

I am currently working on my untitled second novel, which I can’t reveal much about at present. I’m already thinking about books three and four, and also a potential short story anthology, all set in the Georgian era!

Lastly, are there any 2023 releases our readers should look out for?

I have a short story appearing in The Winter Spirits, an anthology of ghostly stories which will be published in the UK in October.

You can find Susan on Twitter and Instagram, along with at her website.

Will you be picking up Pandora? Tell us in the comments below!

The post Q&A: Susan Stokes-Chapman, Author of ‘Pandora’ appeared first on The Nerd Daily.