Interview with Hazel Gaynor - Author of The Last Lifeboat
The Last Lifeboat release date - June 8th, 2023
⚓️
Hazel Gaynor is an award-winning, New York Times, USA Today, Irish Times & international bestselling author. Her new novel, THE LAST LIFEBOAT, will be published June 8th, 2023.
Her most recent historical novel, set in China during WW2, published as The Bird In The Bamboo Cage, in the UK, Ireland, Australia & New Zealand, & as When We Were Young & Brave in the USA and Canada, was an Irish Times bestseller, a National Bestseller in the USA and was shortlisted for the 2020 Irish Book Awards.
Hazel’s 2014 debut novel The Girl Who Came Home—A Novel of the Titanic won the 2015 Romantic Novelists’ Association Historical Novel of the Year, A Memory of Violets, was a 2015 WHSmith Fresh Talent pick. Both books will be republished in paperback and ebook in June 2023. The Girl from The Savoy was shortlisted for the 2016 Irish Book Awards, and The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter was shortlisted for the 2019 Historical Writers’ Association Gold Crown Award and the 2021 Grand Prix du Roman Historique.
Last Christmas in Paris (co-written with Heather Webb) won the 2018 Women’s Fiction Writers Association STAR Award, and their second collaboration, Meet Me In Monaco, was shortlisted for the 2020 Romantic Novelists’ Association Historical Novel of the Year. Their latest co-written novel, Three Words For Goodbye, was chosen by Prima Magazine as a Book of the Year 2021. Their next co-written novel, Christmas With The Queen, will be published in 2024.
Hazel’s work has been translated into eighteen languages and is published in twenty-five territories to date. She lives in Ireland with her husband and two children.
☘️
Interview with Hazel Gaynor – author of The Last Lifeboat
🌊
What inspired you to write about the children of 1940 that were evacuated to Canada rather than focussing on those that were sent to the countryside of England?
I was already familiar with Operation Pied Piper, a mass evacuation campaign at the start of WW2 where children were sent to the countryside from Britain’s towns and cities, but I didn’t know about the ‘sea-vacuees’. Children being sent overseas to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Jamaica was a very different evacuee story and I was keen to explore how parents made the impossible decision to send their children so far away, and to discover what happened to those evacuated children. Reading an account of one evacuee ship which was torpedoed in the Atlantic, and a lifeboat of survivors, lost at sea for eight days, sparked the idea for The Last Lifeboat. It is a little-known episode from the war, and one I felt should be better understood.
What were the benefits of using two points of view for the telling of The Last Lifeboat?
I wanted to write the book from the point of view of two women who don’t know each other but become connected by the tragedy: one in a lifeboat with survivors, the other in London, desperately awaiting news of her children. I hoped that telling the story in this way would add tension, and would also allow me to consider the events from two very different viewpoints.
Please describe Alice and Lily in three words each? How are they different or the same? Did you base these characters on any real people?
Alice: Uncertain, brave, humble.
Lily: Resilient, loving, determined.
Alice and Lily are very strong complex women, the type of characters I always enjoy writing. Alice King is based on Mary Cornish, a piano teacher who volunteered to act as an escort for the children registered for the overseas evacuation programme. She was the only woman in the lost lifeboat of survivors. Mary was credited for the way she kept the children’s spirits up and told them stories to distract them. She was clearly a remarkable woman. Lily represents all the mothers who faced the agonising decision to send their children away.
This novel has many moving scenes. Which one was the hardest for you to write and what were the challenges you faced?
When writing anything based on true events, I am always mindful of the fact that this really happened, and that people like me really lived through those moments. Remembering that, and imagining myself facing the same situation and decisions, helps to create emotion on the page. The sense of confinement and claustrophobia in the lifeboat was a particular challenge to capture. To depict the sense of fear and helplessness, and to write every scene in the same confined setting while maintaining a sense of tension, wasn’t easy. Reading survivor accounts was incredibly helpful.
Name two facts you uncovered during your research for The Last Lifeboat that truly surprised or shocked you.
The facts about the torpedo strike and the aftermath were particularly shocking. There were many ways the tragedy could have been avoided. I was especially shocked to learn that none of the other ships in the convoy returned to help survivors, or that parents weren’t made aware of the fact that the ship carrying their children wouldn’t be under naval protection all the way to Canada, but only part way across the Atlantic.
You used Mass-Observation (diary entries) at the start of some chapters. Tell us a bit about what that is and why you chose to use this tool in aiding your story?
During WW2, around 500 men and women kept personal diaries of their experience as part of a national social observation experiment called Mass-Observation. No special instructions were given to diarists, and consequently the diaries vary considerably in style and content. Although some diarists maintained a continuous flow for years on end, others wrote intermittently or only for a short period. I love discovering things like this from the war and felt that my fictional diary entries added a different dimension and an interesting way to add extra detail about the ongoing war.
What is the main theme of The Last Lifeboat? What words of wisdom do you hope your readers extract from your novel?
My intention is a main theme of hope, although I believe every book has a slightly different message for every reader; that everyone will find within it whatever they are meant to find, so I’m never too prescriptive about the particular themes or messages. I hope readers will be entertained and moved, and that they will finish the book feeling emotionally connected with my characters. I also hope they might discover a part of history they weren’t aware of, but should never feel they’ve attended a history lesson!
Who is your favourite male character in The Last Lifeboat and what characteristics make them special to you?
It’s hard to choose any favourite characters, but Billy Fortune has a special place in my heart! I was keen to explore how many men responded to the war in a different way to the very familiar narrative of the brave hero doing his bit, so I gave my male characters different roles and narratives to what was typically expected of men at the time.
Please share your journey to publication—including any high or low points. Looking back at your steps, is there any advice you wish you had received as a younger writer that might have made the trek easier?
I’ve always loved creative writing, but I had no idea how to write a novel, or how to go about getting one published. I wrote scraps of novels for years before writing my first full novel in 2001 just before turning 40. While that book was never published, it taught me the discipline needed to sit down and write. It is much harder than people think! That experience also taught me how much I loved writing. I then wrote and self-published The Girl Who Came Home in 2012, which eventually led to my publishing deal with HarperCollins in 2014. Ten books on, I’m still so excited to be writing.
Was there an author, event or experience that inspired you to become a writer?
I honestly think every book I’ve ever read has inspired me to become a writer. If anyone should be given the credit, it is my mum for taking me and my sister to the library every week and letting me come home with an armful of books.
If you could time travel to the past, what famous author/poet or historical figure would you want to meet? And what three questions would you ask them?
I would love to meet Amelia Earhart. I would ask her to tell me what really happened on her last flight.
Name 3-5 novels you have read thus far in 2023 that you would highly recommend?
I absolutely loved Yellowface by R.F.Kuang, and Weyward by Emilia Hart. I also loved Kristin Harmel’s beautiful WW2 novel, The Paris Daughter and Carmel Harrington’s The Girl From Donegal.
Provide a short summary of your writing style and process. Are you a planner, pantser or combination of both?
I research while the initial idea percolates and to help me get a grasp of the event and the timeframe I’m planning to write in, and to understand the shape my story might take. I then prepare a 2-3 page outline to share with my agent and editors to make sure everyone is excited about the concept, and once we have all agreed on the direction, I start writing. I continue to research during every stage of the writing process, right down to final edits when I am still double-checking facts and minor details. I don’t plan my books in detail, so my stories often take unexpected turns as my characters lead me in interesting directions!
Are you working on a new writing project? If so, can you share a little about it?
I can't say too much about my next solo novel yet, but I can share that it takes place during the dust bowl era of the 1930s and will be my first novel set entirely in the USA. Driven by an intriguing female character and her estranged niece, the story explores themes of self-discovery, finding hope within adversity, and how far we will go to protect those we love. It was pitched to my editor as 'a story you already know; a woman you don't', and I can’t wait to share more detail in the coming months.
Heather Webb and I are currently writing Christmas With The Queen, which is set over the first five Christmas seasons of Queen Elizabeth IIs reign in the 1950s and revolves around a will-they-won’t-they romance between a chef in the royal household and a royal correspondent working for the BBC. We’re having such fun writing it!
☘️ Special thanks to Hazel for being my guest author! We wish her well on the release of her brilliant new novel, The Last Lifeboat, and encourage everyone to get a copy as you will love it as much as I did. To learn more about Hazel work and to connect, check out her website and find links to her social media pages. ☘️
