Calling all book lovers - it's the latest instalment of the Joanie Book Club! This month, we're sitting down with Elizabeth Macneal, Author of The Burial Plot...

Hi Elizabeth! Thanks so much for chatting with us here at Joanie. Let’s start things off with a bit of background, can you tell our readers about yourself?

Of course! I write novels and I make pottery; I feel absurdly lucky that I get to do both things as a career. I’ve written three novels, which are all set in Victorian England, and I’d describe them as dark and pacy. My first novel, The Doll Factory, transformed my life when it was published into 29 languages and turned into a TV series. Since then, I’ve written Circus of Wonders, and most recently, The Burial Plot, which I was pleased to hear you’ve chosen for your book club. Apart from books and pots, my life is taken up with three young children, and there isn’t much time left over for other things. One day…!

The Burial Plot is a gothic thriller about murder and manipulation set in Victorian London. What inspired you to write this story?

I have always loved walking in cemeteries, filled as they are with fragments of history and past lives. One day, when I was walking through Tower Hamlets Cemetery - opened in 1841 and now in disrepair - I wondered what it would have been like to see something so grand being built. The pulleys winching the stones of the chapel into place, and the vaults and mausoleums being constructed. This became both my setting and plot: the cemetery and its income are the high-stakes prize for two tricksters, Bonnie and Crawford.

Do you have any general tips for aspiring writers? What helps you most when you’re sitting down to start writing?

I’d say practice and be resilient. Some writers have overnight, meteoric success, but it’s unusual. My debut novel was technically my fourth novel. Just like I didn’t sit down at a pottery wheel for the first time and make a beautiful bowl, so too did I need to spend time practising and understanding how to build a plot, a character, a sentence.

Lots of people have a very romantic notion of the lives of writers: long autumnal walks for inspiration, solitary trips to far-flung places, afternoons spent drinking cocktails in candlelit salons. While this may be true for some (and I can’t say I’m not jealous!), my working day isn’t hugely different from the office job I had before. I sit at my desk and I try to write. Sometimes the words come, and sometimes they don’t, and I try to be kind to myself if it’s the latter. Whenever I’m thoroughly stuck, I read even more voraciously than normal. I read everything I can, and when I find a novel that I adore, I try to pick it apart, to see where the seams are, and how the writer did it.

We’re avid readers here at Joanie, and there’s nothing we love more than a good book recommendation. Tell us – what’s your favourite EVER book, and what book have you enjoyed reading most recently?

Oh man, this is a tough one… I really should have a better answer for this, as I get asked it all the time. And yet! But, today at least, I think Middlemarch by George Eliot. Her insight into the lives of everyday people is staggering. Her characters become as real to me as my own friends, or even as myself; and then there’s her bright wit, her brimming, astonishing intelligence and wisdom. It’s also gloriously read by Juliet Stevenson as an audiobook, and I’ll often just start listening at any random point and settle into it.

Recently, I read The Shock of the Light by Lori Inglis Hall. It isn’t out until next year, so I know that’s an exasperating answer, but it really is worth waiting for. It’s everything I’ve wanted my husband’s beloved spy novels to be: through Tessa, we see WWII France through the eyes of the women who were sent behind enemy lines and never returned. It’s defiant and enraging and beautiful and enthralling and really just the perfect read.

Outside of work, what do you get up to in your spare time?

Ha ha ha. Spare time. With a 4-month-old, a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old, I’m lucky if I fit in any work, never mind have a life outside it. I do like making things for my children: quilts, Christmas stockings and linen bears with an extensive miniature wardrobe. I’m incapable of sitting still; it’s just unfortunate that everything I like doing is so frivolous. There will certainly be no shortage of heirlooms. They’d better treasure them, or at least hold back on hiring the skip until I’ve departed this mortal coil…

Finally, which Joanie pieces are you loving most right now?

I’ve just received the Constance Butterfly Garden Print Dress, which is perfect for some nice autumn stomps, and as a bonus, its buttons mean I can feed the baby easily. I love a shirt dress!

Discover more Joanie Book Club-approved styles in our Book Lovers edit!