Book Club Meets: Bringing back Miss Marple, with Lucy Foley

0:00Hi, I'm Natalie Dormer and I'm proud to be an ambassador for Childline. This year, Childline turns 40. To mark it, I've made Child on the Line, a three-part documentary podcast. We hear why children needed a helpline in 1986, how it was built against the odds and the challenges children face today, from abuse and mental health to social media and AI. Search Child on the Line and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

0:30The gondola rises silently through the bank of clouds into the frozen world at the top of the mountain. It is a wonder of modern engineering.

0:39Fearne Cotton: Hello and welcome to the Happy Place Book Club with me, Fern Cotton. There's someone in the gondola, one of the hotel guests most likely eager to make the first tracks of the day. Today, murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel by Lucy Foley. The shadowy figure in the gondola sits with their head thrown back against the rear window, perhaps in awestruck appreciation of the view. The mechanism grinds to a halt. The doors begin to open. The seated figure does not move. The attendant peers through the cabin window. Are they asleep? Are they not intending to get out? Perhaps they've come up here for the sights and will simply stay put and travel back the way they've come.

1:28More snow is on the way, after all. A great deal of it. And yet, there's something odd. A peculiar stillness about the scene. The attendant feels that he is just as alone as he was before the gondola and its occupant emerged through the clouds. Should he go and see? He doesn't want to see. He's struck by the sudden impulse, odd, he's a good Swiss Protestant, to cross himself. Just as he steps out of his cabin into the freezing air, the gondola gives the mechanical shudder that locks it into the final position. This is when the seated figure falls, stiff and inert as a Dresden doll knocked from a mantelpiece, keeling face first onto the metal floor of the cabin.

2:17For a moment, the attendant watches in horror, then he springs into action. But he knows, even as he hastens along the ice-slick path, that it is no use. The gondola's passenger is already dead.

2:32Fearne Cotton: This month we have been reading Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel. Now, I love a mystery story. All the twists and the turns and double crossings and misdirections. and they don't come much more mysterious than a Miss Marple book. This time, there's a murder at the mountaintop Grand Alpine Hotel. And of course, it's up to Miss Marple to find the culprit. It could be a notorious actress, a high-flying politician, an inscrutable political wife, a reckless friend or a shrewd doctor. Lucy Foley has written the first Miss Marple book, originally, of course, created by the wonderful, legendary Agatha Christie.

3:18Fearne Cotton: In 50 years, it's her first outing in 50 years, Lucy grew up reading Miss Marple books and was introduced to them by her beloved granny. In this episode, live from our very special Happy Place book club event at the Pig Hotel near Bath, Lucy and I chat about the moral compasses of Poirot and Miss Marple and what makes a proper writer and whether the pen is sometimes mightier than a keyboard. Enjoy. Verizon knows that holiday math can be complicated. Okay, let's see. We got the four kids, four gifts each, six teacher gifts. Wait, oh, what did we get in? Sandy and the dogs. Oh, I can't forget the dogs.

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6:18Fearne Cotton: Welcome to not only the gorgeous pig Niboth, but also the second Happy Place Book Club live event that we've ever done. We're so happy to have you all here. So thank you. As you enjoy your little piggy bits, my stomach is rumbling. I want that little, is it a Brussels sprout? Is that what we're saying? Oh my, a bit early, but we're going with it. We're going with a deep fried Brussels sprout. we're so happy to see you all here because I have the gorgeous Lucy Foley everyone Lucy I am so thrilled to have you here for our second ever live book club event we did one last year with Elizabeth Day which was so lovely we want to do more of these because that's sort of the heart of any book club is being able to actually get together and properly dissect a book and chat about it so thank you so much for being here today I know you are extremely busy on this mad book tour you're on.

7:13Fearne Cotton: How's it all going? It's been great fun. I think I've only got a couple of weeks left, which sounds like a lot. But yeah, this is this is probably the highlight of the whole thing, though. But it's such a mad extended journey because you wrote the book seemingly quite a long time ago. And then you've got, you know, this whole revisiting of it, going out and talking about it. So Miss Marple has been by your side for some time now. It has. And I've really loved having her as a companion for so long. I mean, this is so exciting because in your brilliant book, Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel, this is Miss Marple's first outing in 50 years.

7:51Fearne Cotton: Yeah, no pressure. The responsibility is in your hands. How did you feel having that responsibility handed over to you? So it's that thing where you say yes immediately to something that's this huge honour. I mean, it's an honour of a kind of writing career. I wished I could tell my granny I was so proud she was she was a huge Miss Marple fan if she lost something she would say what would Miss Marple do um so that was all that like joy and sort of exhilaration and pride and then quite quickly the fear set in and it was that can I actually do this you know I've written a short story involving her and that was great fun and I'd sort of fallen in love with the character even more um doing my research for that but then it was can I do this across a whole novel you know the pressure and as a Christie fan yeah I have to get this right did you um and this is I'm saying this because I would do this did you sort of talk to Agatha Christie from afar and go Agatha what do I do like oh definitely a bit of a chat going on a dialogue yeah okay I mean I'd already done that with my previous books I'd be like what would if I got into a sort of plot hole I'd think what would Agatha do in this situation send me a sign Agatha.

9:00Fearne Cotton: She's an old friend. Yeah, I love that. Looking at your Instagram, I love that you're also giving us insight into how to write a book. It's a really niche thing and also very bespoke. Everybody has a slightly different take on it. You say that when you start to write a book, it's either an occurrence, a character or a location. That's right. In this case, it was location yes absolutely so that came immediately well I needed to find I was very conscious that I needed to find my route into this book and as a huge Christie fan I needed it needed a reason for being you know because there are so many existing brilliant Miss Marple books so I had to I felt that I had to do something additive and it was when I learned that um Death on the Nile was originally meant to be a Miss Marple novel not a Poirot novel in my sort of early reading I thought well that's it I'm going to take her on another holiday because she got robbed of that one I really felt like Poirot gets all the sort of glamorous globe trotting adventures and she mainly stays in St Mary Mead or the UK yeah boring yeah get her out and about exactly why the snow why because there is always this sort of like lovely glamorous side to these books why why did that really speak to you that setting I think partly it's because the first Agatha Christie I ever read when I was 12 which actually a lot of people read her read her very young um was murder on the orient express and I think for me part of that sort of Christy experience has always been the the kind of glamour of that snowbound and the claustrophobia of that snowbound setting um so there was that I also she'd be in the hot holiday so I want to take her on a cold one she goes to the Caribbean the Caribbean mystery but also as soon as I knew I wanted to do this post-war setting I thought that the geography would be really interesting because you've got the Swiss Alps but it's the French speaking part of the Swiss Alps so you're very close to the border with Italy and with France and I was very interested in the sort of movement of people across those borders those mountain passes only really five years before and how that would play into the sort of backstory of some of these characters.

11:12Fearne Cotton: Do you think having it set in the 1950s and it being a murder mystery um well I guess it sort of it lends itself to a murder mystery because you haven't got a digital footprint you haven't got the internet to quickly find out well just google like who did what it's like there is this element of people having to look for paper trails and actual clues so it really lends itself to a murder mystery I'm imagining oh absolutely I love not having all the tech that you have to deal with now I always have to find ways of you know self-service not working or you know cutting people off from their creature comforts but and I always think what would Agatha Christie do with today's technology because actually she was very much at the forefront of the science of the time I think she would have had quite a lot of fun with it but it was really nice thinking I can do everything in a much more analog way yeah and I guess also and I don't want to give anything away because I know some of you have read the book some of you are halfway through some of you are eagerly about to start so there will be no spoilers whatsoever but it does allow you the time for it to unfurl quite slowly which it probably wouldn't in modern day timings totally absolutely everyone's locations you know there'll be a helicopter there immediately I did do a lot of kind of researching of how easy in 1950 would it have been to get a helicopter up the mountain not that easy it turns out so it was okay I love So they really are trapped there for a while.

12:36Fearne Cotton: And let's talk about the characters, because one thing I just loved about this book is the characters are so vivid. I can picture them all. I almost felt like I could walk out of the house and I would bump into one of them. How easily did the characters come to you? For me, obviously, the plot is really important in this sort of book, especially in a Christie-esque book where you want that almost that Swiss watch perfection of the plotting. But for me, it's always characters first. I have to know them really well. as you say I have to feel I would recognize them if I bumped into them in the street and really plot should come from character so in my books I feel anyway so I spend quite a lot of time with them before I start writing if that makes sense sort of talking to them in my head nice and what so you're just trying to learn about like who they are what their backstory is and and build the character from there exactly just sort of accumulating more and more of a sense of who they are obviously some characters some characters come to you really fully formed so sylvia sinclair who is this sort of hollywood silver screen icon i suppose she i heard her voice so clearly from the off whereas others diana glass who is um a dolly bantry and miss marple sort of ladies help i guess i want one of them by the way i do too i need one i need her in my life please thank you absolutely she would sort it out yeah um but she is a little bit more mysterious as a character anyway so she came to me a little bit more slowly she took more drawing out I love Sylvia's character thank you I love writing her I just love anything about like a glamorous movie star from yesteryear oh so fun doing the research on that character was such fun actually she's very inspired by women like Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner and obviously Marilyn Monroe um big stars of the era I loved reading that there are these wonderful interviews with Ava Gardner where they were obviously fueled by a lot of red wine and she just felt like you know today's like she felt she just wanted to set the record straight on everything like ex-husbands she didn't care she was just gonna stick the knife in so good I highly recommend reading them but also those three women were very interesting in that they were obviously thrust into the spotlight but had all had quite difficult childhoods quite traumatic childhoods in some ways so I was very interested um in you know who who are you you know you do embody this sort of icon of silver screen femininity but who are you when you sort of shut your hotel room door and you're on your own again and the past catches up with you so there is a darkness there as well she's great fun to write as a character and there is humor in her voice and things but there is also a darkness there a shadow yeah it's amazing and obviously or I'm imagining you know from the get-go who did it is that something you work out immediately what no I don't so and that's weirdly now when I know it's working so with all of my murder mysteries I've started out so everyone has a motive right so I've started out with an idea of okay well I think this person did it and that makes sense because they've got this motive and you know all tracks and then about a third of the way into writing it's like the real murderer emerges from the shadows it's this sort of slightly spooky feeling and it's like you did it wow and I always think well that's great because if I'm surprised hopefully the reader will be too definitely that's surprising for me to hear because I would have imagined I've never written a murder mystery but I would imagine that you would know the ending and then you have to work backwards but you're kind of just letting the story evolve as you go a little bit I did plot this one out so I plotted it all out um it's actually the first book I fully plotted out eight books in and I've learned that's a much calmer way to write a novel there's a lot less crying but on your Instagram you have admitted that you've at times felt like you weren't a proper writer because you don't do the planning but I think that's a load of old bollocks quite frankly like you write how you want to write a hundred percent but it's taken me a long time to learn that because I would sit and do events with other authors and they would say, well, I have my spreadsheet, so I know what I'm doing.

16:45Oh, I hate spreadsheets.

16:46Fearne Cotton: And I'd have, I mean, I do love the aesthetics though. We got into this line of work, so we don't have to deal with spreadsheets. I have to do spreadsheets. I don't want to ever do one, ever. No. I never will. No, like there's no reason for me to go into Excel. Absolutely don't know what it is. Never seen it. No. But, you know, so you hear about other people's phrases and you think oh that sounds like the proper way of doing it and it has taken me a long time to realize that there is no proper way of doing it actually I have learned with this book that maybe it does make things easier if you plot things out at the start so I am going to try that one from now on and that's the thing your process can always change as a writer and you can sort of add things in along the way but I also used to think you know I had to get to a certain word count every day or I had to be sitting at my desk for it to look like work and actually I've realized the more it feels like play often in a coffee shop you know some writing might happen some people watching might happen that's what works for me yeah you have to go and see life and experience humans to get those little markers like so at what point in your writing process for this one did you go oh I know who's done it when did that start to happen about a third of the way into writing and I was like going along this track of I think it's this person but a bit too obvious maybe you know it all it all tracked but it maybe felt a bit too like cut and dried and then thank goodness yeah this thing happens um which we're not going to say um you very cleverly keep us guessing and assuming and it just keeps unfolding unfolding unfolding um Miss Marple obviously as set by Agatha Christie is the sort of person that works with a very sturdy moral compass.

18:30Fearne Cotton: Like that's always going to be guiding her decisions and how she unpicks a crime and a mystery and the conclusion of that. That's what we very much see within the pages of this book without saying anything at all. Without you saying anything at all in your answer, do you agree with her actions towards the end of the book? gosh i do in a sense because they are true to her to who she is and to her as you say her moral compass yes it's interesting because poirot without naming any particular books and giving spoilers poirot sometimes decides to take the law into his own hands a little bit more because he's a man very possibly thinks he knows best he does i think it could be and but miss marple she has her own particular so I get it I'm not sure I necessarily agree with it I just found again I thought that was so clever of you and I I was just oh I can't say things um I was just left thinking about a million things towards the end of the book it's so hard not to say um I'm not going to spoil anything but it's just it's spot on it's so so brilliant

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23:35Fearne Cotton: let's talk about your writing process as well because we have a lot of people who listen to these particular episodes of the podcast who will you know send in questions and ask like where do I start how do I begin with writing like you say you didn't initially start with this whole plot and this this method that you're now using but you don't feel necessarily intimidated stepping into a book not having it all figured out do you think that is just time and practice that you get to a place of confidence where you can go let's just see what happens I think so I mean with every book I think how did I do this last time so I don't know how reassuring that is but in a way I find it reassuring because and I heard you know um the great Anne Cleave say she struggles with the same thing that with each book you have this new set of challenges so you're kind of always sort of slightly falling back on I'm just going to put one foot in front of the other and just start writing and sort of hope it all comes together but I think knowing that it has before really helps so you gain confidence in that sense so you think whenever you get into a plot hole or something doesn't seem to be working you have strategies that you've used before so I would say that comes from sort of habit but I don't know I would say I would say the biggest thing is just to get over that hurdle if you're thinking about writing is just to start writing and to write every day and make it a habit and don't worry about it feeling you know cringy or not like the best prose that you've ever read just sort of just just make it a habit I think.

25:09Fearne Cotton: I mean how did this one differ in terms of knowing that you've got a character that pre-exists that you want to keep in pristine condition as Agatha had set her to be did that feel like a sort of an extra element that you needed to consider throughout the writing process oh totally I mean I think so the commission to this book was lovely actually because it was we want you to write your take on a Miss Marple mystery not a paint by numbers Agatha Christie Miss Marple which which made sense to me creatively because I think trying to write exactly as Agatha Christie would feel like a weird act of forgery or passing off it wouldn't it wouldn't ring true but I knew if I were going to bring in any of my own creative stuff I had to get Miss Marple on the page as close as I possibly could to Agatha Christie's Miss Marple and that was by basically reading and rereading all of the existing books yes watching the adaptations because I think people have an idea of her from those that's very important but really reading and rereading the books writing down sort of Marpleisms in a notebook things that I like sort of squirrel away for future use and then like all research you have to sort of imbibe it all and then almost slightly forget it in order to create that space for yourself to just have fun and write the book you need to feel free and liberate I'm imagining for it to go off on all of these magical tangents totally I sort of had to make her my own in a way you know I had to sort of take her from Agatha Christie and make her my own and then I knew I knew you know if I got things wrong it's the wonderful thing about the drafting process you know when you write that first draft that is not luckily going to be the book that hits the bookshelves and people buy you have a chance to sort of correct your mistakes but in that first draft I try and be really free make mistakes and just play yeah what do you love about Miss Marple the most oh my goodness let me count the ways I mean I love that she's actually very enigmatic so I think it's so interesting that we're often seeing her we're always seeing her through other people's eyes and often colored by their ageism and their sexism I think that's really interesting and she has so many different layers so yes she is this very sweet old lady in one sense but she also has this sort of slight spookiness to her at other times there's a scene in the last book nemesis where she sits up in bed and she's simultaneously this little old lady in a frilly bed jacket confronting this murderer and she is also she becomes nemesis she becomes this figure from ancient myth and there's this sort of dark power to it and so she has that sort of slight spookiness or in a pocket full of rye she's really angry and she's motivated to solve the murder by anger um i love the way that she uses her invisibility as an older woman to solve to solve the mysteries you know it's almost like she creates this blind that allows her to just work her magic behind the scenes undiscovered whereas poirot's always stepping into a room going, I am the world's greatest detective.

28:12I am a man.

28:15Fearne Cotton: I agree. And I also think it culturally is such an interesting talking point because in many other cultures, elders are really upheld and storytelling is such a huge part of being an elder. And I've actually got a really good friend who's a bit older than me, who is, she calls herself an elder in practice. And she's somebody that loves to impart wisdom and she mentors me sort of with a friendship part of that kind of in the middle in the mix of it all um but she she's a mentor to me and a few other people and it is all about that sage wisdom and storytelling that you pass on to younger generations and in our culture it's like oh cute little old person yes and that's it and it's like wait a minute let's not forget about Miss Marple that's so true that's a really good point and And I absolutely agree.

29:04You know, I, I, my grandmothers, who I both use actually as the sort of a little bit as the Miss Marple model, because they were quite Miss Marple. You know, they had this incredible understanding of human nature kind of garnered across a long life, you know, and, and people are always saying with Miss Marple, oh, but Jane, you're so innocent. You've lived your whole life in this little English village. And actually that's the perfect grounding because you've seen everything that humanity can be good and bad. But I do think it is that weird thing that we sort of ascribe this innocence to old age.

29:37Actually, you've seen it all. It's so strange, isn't it? And I do think that's something specific to our culture, to maybe Western culture. It is.

29:44Fearne Cotton: And I really, I agree. Like I had two brilliant matriarchal grandmothers who were completely different, but full of stories. And they'd been through all sorts of hell in the war. And I would get little tidbits from them. And I wish, wish, wish that I'd quizzed them more. and heard more of their, you know, their childhood stories and lessons learned that I could have taken on and, you know, passed down to my own kids. But, you know, you sort of see, well, like my nan Ruby, for instance, you know, she had the classic sort of tightly curled hair and she'd wear her cute little jacket and people would be like, oh, Ruby.

30:18Fearne Cotton: I was like, you have no idea. Absolutely. You have no idea. She's got the most cutting tongue of all time and she will just literally, she will demolish you in one sentence. Like, you've no idea. but it is strange how yeah we sort of dismiss people sort of I don't know 70 above as you know oh there's nothing to be learned or nothing to be um extracted from their their life stories bizarre it's it's so interesting you saying about the hair and things though because I I sort of discuss that in this book the sort of signifiers that we don't look beyond so the signifiers of old age or the signifiers of the actress or of the the sort of society wife you know we see or even a none you know we see this sort of icon I suppose not what's beyond the icon not the real person yeah I've loved that in the story the politician's wife who is another big character in the book again you get to explore what on the surface we think we're seeing which is someone who's very uptight and very controlled and very considered but there's always a backstory and actually something else lurking beneath was that a really fun element to sort of dive into ah you think this about the character but this is really what's going on oh absolutely that's something I'm always interested in my books and actually something I think Christy does so well it's funny because sometimes you hear people say well she just writes stereotypes but actually what she does is so much more clever she takes these archetypes these recognizable figures and she shows you what's really going on behind the mask behind closed doors which is endlessly intriguing I think seeing behind the type and and that's absolutely something I tried to do in this book yeah I without a doubt even the fact that um with each chapter heading you've put the the character's name and then the archetype you put the star the help the friend the politician's wife so whenever we return to those characters it's set in stone we know what we know what we think we're getting from that character and I think in the 1950s that that really interested me you know I think those roles were even more regimented that idea of you know are the are you sort of almost actually Victorian idea of are you the angel in the home this sort of perfect wife or are you this loose woman this sort of actress figure or you know I've got this character Diana Glass who is the the lady's companion and she's one of these women that had this I mean she had a very difficult and a very tragic war in many ways but she also found a sort of age agency and a freedom in the war that is now no longer available to her she's very adventurous and she's very intelligent but she's been sort of forced back into this role in society that doesn't really fit her and she's sort of kicking against that yeah I love that do you think that come quite easily that that character for you in her her backstory yes and I don't know how much more to say about it that's what I'm also fascinated by is within your writing process you have much like my little nerdy notepad you have a notepad and a pen and your first draft of I'm imagining each chapter do you do it by chapter is with a pen I am all over the place in terms of what's actually in the notebook right so it's just sort of whatever I happen to have written on that day okay and then I sort of stitch it all together at the end because I don't write chronologically I don't necessarily write from one point of view the whole way through I just write whatever comes to me that day in a notebook and then try really hard not to lose the notebook before you get it onto the computer that would be bad I think that would stress me out like I don't know if I could have it not chronological I don't know how I feel about that but I love that this is like your creative genius is just flying out of you well this is what I've learned is it that's what works for me yes you know and actually I would say it's a great cure for writer's block because if you don't feel like right it's a bit like what they used to say with an exam paper at school like answer the questions that you can answer first and then go back and fill in the others once your sort of brain's got working and so that's really what I do I see some scenes very clearly in my head from the outset and others the sort of linking scenes maybe less so and so I I kind of answer those questions first I write those scenes and then I come back and fill in the rest um which I found really works is there something about writing with a pen that is also um slightly more freeing I think when we're at a laptop and it's like if you look at um uh Julia Cameron right who's like says to do the morning pages you get up and you get a pen you just write whatever is in your head without sitting there going how should I write this you are just free flowing does that help you sort of loosen up with your writing absolutely and I think they've even done sort of scientific studies on this there is some connection some kind of kinetic connection between your brain and your hand that you I mean you are then physically sort of creating something almost in the way a painter would or you know a sculptor um so for me it feels much freer it also means it feels less pressured I think just the notebook I can sort of scribble things out and I literally I'll put words in brackets I'll put things like this but better in the final version because you know you can come back to it at a later stage that's so good I am this this is rubbish I'm all for the pen like I get slightly panicked like all the kids now in schools are using tech and I'm like we need to keep the pen alive I'm of the generation where I've got and it will be extinct at some point I've got a writer's bump on my middle finger from drawing with a pencil so much as a kid oh kids won't have a writer's bump they won't have that I know like iPad thumb or something I don't know something's being lost and it's a bit like you know I love reading on kindle I don't if we say it, but I love, nothing will replace the printed, you know, the feel of tiny pages.

36:06Oh, I am book only.

36:06Fearne Cotton: Yeah, are you? I'm exclusively book. I mean, I may. Especially, can I just say, not only a hardback, but one with a lovely little print on the pages there. Look at that. Look at, just for you back here, look at that. Oh, look at it. Oh, look at those pages. Stunning. Well, it's funny. Only book nerds will understand. And we're in a room full of them. It's fantastic. Well, it's funny because I worked in publishing before writing. And when I started publishing, the whole story was print books are over. It's all going to be about e-books. And actually what's just happened since is they've become more and more beautiful and more and more covetable as objects.

36:47And I love that.

36:48Fearne Cotton: Oh, me too. I love it. Before we wrap things up, Lucy Foley, I would love to know where is your happy place? my happy place is a coffee shop with a little flat white on hand and a pastry and my notebook in front of me and ideally it's sort of 30 minutes into that experience so I'm kind of I've done my sort of people watching and looking around and I don't know chewing the end of my pencil and I've actually got into the flow state of writing do you I'm so intrigued about that because whenever I interview writers or I'm sort of slightly stalking them online, I find it fascinating as to what that environment is that really gets people's creative juices going.

37:33Fearne Cotton: For you, you need a bit of bustle, it seems, and inspiration. I need to be literally like in a cave on my own to concentrate. I can't think straight. Even sat here doing this, normally I'm in my little happy place studio and it's just me and the guest and that's it. I'm like, oh my God, there's a lady in a beautiful red beret and I can hear someone eating some Brussels sprouts over here I'm like literally constantly being distracted like what am I doing fuck I'm interviewing Lucy you're right shit where's my leg bone like I cannot focus with stuff going on around me how how are you doing that I don't know I think I'm endlessly nosy that's why I write I'm intrigued by people so the lovely lady in the red beret such a focal point today into the book I think I'd be like, what is her story?

38:15What's her backstory? What is it?

38:17Fearne Cotton: How did she get her fringe in such a neat, quaffed little curl there? How did we make that happen? I hear you. No, I'm just, I'm so distracted. I can't, I can't focus. I can't even have music, like nothing. I need, like cats, shut up. Everyone, leave me alone. Otherwise, you can't do it. I mean, cats really don't want you to do any work. Mine, that's partly why I don't write at home. They sit on my notepad. They sit on it, or on your laptop. They know. Or my children, they'll also do that. Or your kids, yeah. That's exactly slightly more of a distraction. Well, let Lucy, it's the most brilliant book.

38:47Fearne Cotton: Please give it up for Lucy Foley. Yeah. Thanks so much. Oh, thanks again to Lucy for joining me at The Pig. Oh, that hotel was so lovely. I wish I could forget who the killer was in the end so I could be shocked by it all over because it was so good. But, oh my God, what a lovely chat. I love chatting about the responsibility of taking on the legend, Miss Marple. Also, we talked about her inspiration and chatting about working in the arts and media to get out of making spreadsheets, which is very much how I've run my whole career, and getting lost in the world of the past without the tech of today.

39:26Fearne Cotton: Also, thank you to just all the lovely people that turned up. We want to do more live book club events all over the gaff, and it was so nice to have the people of Bath come join us for a Happy Place book club. Next month on the Happy Place Book Club, we'll be getting stuck into This Is What Happens When Women Read, a memoir by Juliana Glass. This book is so good. If you're reading it now, we would love to hear your thoughts because there's so much to chat about with this subject matter. You just need to head to our Instagram, Happy Place Book Club and drop us a DM. Thank you again to the wonderful Lucy Foley for joining us.

40:02Fearne Cotton: And thanks as always to you for listening, you blimmin' brilliant bookworms. Thank you.

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