My guest today is novelist Rosie Fiore. Rosie is going to talk to us about her writing journey, and her latest book. So grab yourself a cuppa, get cosy and let’s get chatting to Rosie.
Biography
Rosie Fiore was born and grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has worked as a writer for theatre, television, advertising and the corporate market. She has lived in London since 2000. She has one husband, two sons and a cat.
She has published several novels to critical acclaim: This Year’s Black (Struik 2004), Lame Angel (Struik 2006), Babies in Waiting (Quercus 2012) and Wonder Women (Quercus 2013). After Isabella was published by Allen & Unwin in 2016, and What She Left in 2017.
She also writes under the pseudonym Cass Hunter, and her first novel as Cass, The After Wife, was published by Trapeze in March 2018. It was translated into nine languages and optioned as a film in China.
She is a tutor on the Jericho Writers’ Ultimate Novel Writing Programme, and the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Middlesex University.
Welcome to my blog Rosie. You’ve got quite a varied writing background. Can you tell us about your writing journey?
I love the term “writing journey”: it suggests getting onto a mode of transport and proceeding smoothly to a destination. I’m afraid my own journey has involved metaphorical flat tyres, lost maps, waiting at abandoned bus stops and occasional ill-advised trips the wrong way up a dual carriageway. I’ve learned that the most dangerous thing I can do on this perilous voyage is to assume I have arrived at a destination.
That’s a brilliant description, Rosie!
I was first published in 2003 by a small imprint in South Africa, my home country. My debut, This Year’s Black, was enthusiastically received by critics and sold well there. I was living in London, and thought, “Well, this is a doddle! I’ll just get a UK agent and then a publishing deal here!”
It took me four years and multiple rejections to be signed by a UK agent. While she loved my first two books, both published in SA, she wanted something new. My first attempt to write a new book didn’t sell, so it was nine years on from my debut and with my fourth book, that I signed my first UK publishing deal with Quercus.
After writing two light-hearted commercial novels, my work took a more serious turn, focusing on the complex issues families sometimes face. I was delighted to find a home for my next two books with Allen & Unwin.
It should be said that at no point in these years was I earning a living as a novelist. I have always worked full-time as a copywriter, and that was what put food on the table. Writing was strictly for evenings and weekends.
Then in 2016, an IP offer from Orion changed my life. I was asked to write a novel about a robotics scientist and her robot double. The After Wife was born, and a flood of lucrative international deals followed. It became possible for me to give up my day job and call myself a fulltime writer for the first time.
How wonderful! Congratulations.
I used the opportunity of lockdown to begin writing ambitious historical fiction, which I found immensely fulfilling. I felt hugely optimistic about my bright future.
Since then, I’ve had my hopes raised and dashed more times than I can count. I’ve left an agent, signed with and left another agent, had a very near miss with a major publisher and been to acquisition with several others. It got to the point that my mental health was suffering significantly, and (rather dramatically) I announced to my family that I was giving up writing.
That lasted all of a week but it did lead to me making a choice I wish I’d made years ago: to self-publish my novel, The Death & Life of Lucy Westenra, a feminist retelling of Dracula.
I have absolutely loved the control this has afforded me: from commissioning the cover of my dreams to planning a book launch in a venue close to my heart and booking myself exciting events. Will Lucy sell a million copies? Maybe not, but she’s already gaining positive reviews and responses, and she’s out in the world exactly as I want her to be.
Every day of the process I have learned something new, and my next big challenge is to record the audiobook. I have two more novels to publish this year, and then I hope to reclaim the rights to my existing published work. My own publishing empire! Right now, the empire consists of a few shelves of books and envelopes in my summerhouse, but even that random penguin had to start somewhere!
What a fascinating writing journey, Rosie. Wishing you lots of success with your self-publishing. I hope your books soar.
Rosie’s Social Media
Website: rosiefiore.com
Facebook: facebook.com/rosiefiorewriter
X: x.com/rosiefiore
BlueSky: rosiefiore.bsky.social
Rosie’s Latest Book
What desperate steps will Lucy Westenra take to save her own life?
Hillingham in Hampstead, once the home of the well-to-do Westenra family, now divided into apartments. When teacher Kate Balcombe sets about renovating her flat in the attic, she finds an unsent letter, written 130 years before by Lucy, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the house.
You may know Lucy from Bram Stoker’s Dracula… a pretty, flirtatious girl with three ardent suitors, she is Mina Harker’s best friend. When Lucy falls mysteriously ill and dies, Van Helsing identifies her as a victim of the vampire.
But what if the monsters who hunt Lucy are much closer to home?
As Kate begins to investigate Lucy’s story, she meets James Harker, Mina’s great-great grandson, and together they uncover a long-hidden story of deception and murder.
Buy Link: Amazon
Some more books by Rosie/Cass:
When Rachel and Aidan fell in love, they thought it was forever.
She was a brilliant, high-flying scientist. He was her loving and supportive husband.
Now she’s gone, and Aidan must carry on and raise their daughter alone.
But Rachel has left behind her life’s work, a gift of love to see them through the dark days after her death…
A surprising and emotional story starring an unforgettable heroine, for fans of Together, The Summer of Impossible Things and The Time Traveller’s Wife
Buy Link: The After Wife
What would make you walk away from your life, your family and friends, in search of a completel fresh start?
Helen Cooper has a charmed life. She’s beautiful, accomplished, organised – the star parent at the school. Until she disappears.
But Helen wasn’t abducted or murdered. She’s chosen to walk away, abandoning her family, husband Sam, and her home.
Where has Helen gone, and why? What has driven her from her seemingly perfect life? What is she looking for? Sam is tormented by these questions, and gradually begins to lose his grip on work and his family life.
He sees Helen everywhere in the faces of strangers. He’s losing control.
But then one day, it really is Helen’s face he sees…
Buy Link: What She Left
Karen King 