“Life isn’t a road, Verity, winding along to some utopic destination; it’s just one big, fenced arena, and we’re all thrown in together and told to make the best of it.”

London, 1929. Marcus Eden – charming, handsome, wealthy, badger-enthusiast (not that last one) – has just returned to England from Chicago with Penelope, his wife of one year, hoping for a quiet life of peaceful domestic bliss. This, however, is not on Penelope’s agenda, and Penelope always wins – by virtue of Marcus being rather embarrassingly in love with her.

Their cousin, Verity Mosshart, is enjoying the blissful delights of her recent betrothal – so people keep informing her, anyway. Her childhood friend and husband-to-be, Freddie Followill, views their upcoming nuptials with a mixture of nausea and abject terror.

But the Edens’ arrival in London promises to shape their fates in ways they far from anticipate; Penelope, for one, certainly knows how to make her presence felt.

Scandal? Rife.
Secrets? Many.

And badgers?
Badgers? Unfortunately, none.

What genre is this?

Historical, with a sprinkling of romance and spades of drama.

What kind of readers will it appeal to?

Ones with good taste! Ha, no – hopefully anyone with a sense of humour who just enjoys a good story… and I’m a firm believer that you don’t have to be a history buff to enjoy and connect with a historical novel.

Tell us about Verity.

Verity Mosshart has spent most of her life allowing decisions to be made for her, and is more than happy to be taken by the hand by the dazzling Penelope Eden, newly-arrived in London from Chicago. Marcus Eden, Verity’s cousin and Penelope’s husband of a year, is desperate for Penelope to settle into a quiet and peaceful life of marital bliss with him – instead, she pursues a routine of near-constant parties and socializing, leaving Marcus adrift and sweeping Verity up in her torrent of chaos.

Verity, partly through her aforementioned passiveness, and partly for other, darker reasons, has also lately become engaged to her long-time friend Freddie Followill, though it is difficult to say which of them seems more reluctant to talk about their betrothal. Verity questions why Freddie proposed to her at all – indeed, he has his own secrets, of which not even she, his dearest friend, is aware, and which threaten him in ways that the laughing, sparkling society they keep does not begin to imagine.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

Badger-lover, sandwich-addict, enjoys lengthy baths and short sermons, Whovian, sometime-wit, full-time-cynic, fighting the onesie trend until I die.

Don’t hold it against us, but we just bought onesies ourselves. 
Do you use social media?

add me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/grainne.ohare.18

What’s next?

Fairies, bandits, asylums, brothels, artists, highwaymen, crime-lords, governesses, pirates, dolphins…? you just wait and see.

How easily do new storylines come to you? If we give you four random words – Man, Woman, Airport, Darkness – can you give us a brief storyline?

This nameless man and woman have thrown the power in a European airport, plunging the place into utter darkness so that they, unseen in the ensuing chaos, can together raid every duty-free shop entirely of Twixes, then boarding separate flights to the US, where the Twix famine is among the worst of the many harrowing effects of the recent nuclear war.