Dear Reader,
Welcome to all you new readers of girl with the golden pen! It’s great to have you here. This newsletter will arrive in your inbox twice a month, as my deadline pile-up means I have to cut down on frequency. But hopefully that will mean twice the amount of fun things to show and tell with each missive.
Since I last wrote to you, I’ve received the hardback edition of A Wild & True Relation. I know I’m biased, but I think it’s the most beautiful book in the entire world. This story has been with me fourteen years, and it hardly feels real that Tom, Molly and Grace are now out in the world.
It’s strange, after working on a book for so long, you might imagine I’d want to examine the book and pore over every detail. But I almost feel afraid to flip through it. I felt the same when it came to Testament and Double or Nothing. Maybe it’s a sense that if I look too hard it won’t be real. Maybe it’s just a fear of typos! I look at the book out of the corner of my eye as I pass it in a room. I keep it within reach. We’re getting acquainted, this real book and I.
I shared a video of the moment I opened up the book parcel on Twitter, and astonishingly it’s been viewed 45.9 thousand times. Hard to imagine! You can check it out here, if you want to be the 45,901st person.
I’m so excited to be celebrating the release of A Wild & True Relation on February 2nd at Dr Johnson’s House. As you probably know by now, I’ve collected dictionaries my entire life. Dr Johnson is my spirit animal.
Dr Samuel Johnson by Charles Townley. Yale Center for British Art. Public domain.
Followed by poverty and illness since birth, Johnson scratched out a living as a jobbing writer until he was commissioned to write A Dictionary of the English Language, the first of its kind. Moving to Gough Square to undertake the commission, Johnson spent nine years labouring on the book in the garret. When it came out in 1755, the dictionary was so successful it changed the methodology and direction of lexicography forever. He became known as ‘Dictionary Johnson’, earning a pension for the work from the crown. Johnson was a patron and friend to many female writers, from the blind poet Anna Williams, who lived with him and Johnson supported financially, to the diarist, poet and travel writer Hester Thrale, his closest confidante. Johnson and his circle feature as characters in A Wild & True Relation, and I feel honoured to launch the book within his walls.
Tickets have now sold out, but if you’d like to attend a launch, there are also online or in-person tickets available for the Scottish launch at Portobello Books on 23rd February.
I don’t read reviews, because that way madness lies, buy my publicist sent me these nice words from the review in The Telegraph, out today:
breathlessly swashbuckling … The late Hilary Mantel praised Sherwood’s ambition and sophistication, and indeed her work is both full-blooded historical fiction and thoughtful literary deconstruction, both elements immaculately researched. You can take pleasure in her punchy plotting and flamboyant nautical descriptions, plus the subversive Molly’s complex navigation of those dual selves – with “Orlando” a clear nod to Woolf’s similarly gender-bending novel.
The book is released next week on the 2nd of February. You can pre-order it here.
Until then, I’m on a mission to finish editing the second book in the Double O trilogy and deliver it to the Flemings and HarperCollins on the 31st of January. Paid subscribers can read about my progress below…
From Kim, With Love x
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